National Monitoring Project of Student Achievement Report 5.3: Pasifika Student Achievement in English: Reading – Key findings 2014

In 2014, the National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) assessed student achievement at Year 4 and Year 8 in two areas of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) – English: reading and social studies. This brief report presents the results for Pasifika students in English: reading. Pasifika students made up about 13 percent of the national samples at Year 4 and Year 8. About 70 percent of Pasifika students attended low decile schools at Year 4 and about 54 percent at Year 8. Thirty-nine percent of Pasifika students at Year 4 achieved above the minimum score associated with achieving level 2 objectives on the Knowledge and Application of Reading in English (KARE) assessment and 37 percent at Year 8 achieved above the minimum score associated with achieving level 4 objectives. These percentages were lower than the corresponding percentages for all students in the national samples. The difference in average scale scores between Pasifika students in Year 4 and Year 8 was 30 scale units. This was similar to the corresponding difference for all students in the national samples. Overall, Pasifika students at both year levels were positive about reading. The average Attitude to Reading scale score for Pasifika students was higher than the average scale score for all students in the national sample at both year levels. Students in Year 4 were generally more positive about reading than students in Year 8. Pasifika students who scored higher on the Attitude to Reading scale scored higher, on average, on the KARE assessment. Pasifika students who indicated that they read for more than 2 hours a week in their own time scored, on average, about 21 scale score units higher than those who reported that they did no or very little reading in their own time. Pasifika students from high decile schools scored higher, on average, on the KARE assessment than students from low decile schools. Students from low decile schools were also under-represented in the groups of Pasifika students who achieved above the national average at each year level. Pasifika girls scored higher, on average, than Pasifika boys on the KARE assessment at Year 4 and Year 8 by about 8 scale score units. Girls also formed the majority of the group of Pasifika students who scored above the national average at each year level. Year 4 Pasifika girls were generally more positive about reading than Pasifika boys. In Year 8, girls were less likely than boys to report that they did little or no reading in their own time.