Science achievement by ethnicity

This section will examine the science achievement of students in TIMSS across different ethnic groups, by use of English at home, and by country of birth. These three characteristics of students are interrelated so in the final part of this section they are examined together. This section will examine relationships with science achievement, but it should be noted that the existence of a relationship does not infer a causal link.

Science achievement by ethnicity

Five broad ethnic classifications are used to describe ethnicity in New Zealand. They are: Pākehā/European, Māori, Pasifika, Asian, and ‘Other’ ethnic groupings. The majority of Year 5 students in New Zealand were identified by their schools¹ as Pākehā/European (61%) or Māori (19%). Pasifika (10%) and Asian (7%) students made up most of the rest of the ethnic groupings, with four percent of students categorised in the Other ethnic grouping.

Previous cycles of TIMSS have shown that average science achievement varies across ethnic groups. Although the variation in achievement is not caused by ethnicity per se, education policies have been introduced so that all students may realise their potential. Specific areas of focus for the Ministry of Education include the achievement of Māori and Pasifika students (Ministry of Education, 2007). The results at the Year 5 level in TIMSS 2002/03 (Caygill, Sturrock & Chamberlain, 2007) showed an increase in science performance, on average, for Māori and Pasifika students since the first cycle in 1994/1995.

In TIMSS 2006/07, Asian (529) and Pākehā/European (528) students had significantly higher mean science achievement than did their Māori (459), Pasifika (431) and Other (502) counterparts, as shown in Figure 9. On average, Māori students performed significantly higher in science than Pasifika students. No significant difference was observed between Pākehā/European and Asian students.

The distribution of achievement of Asian students and those in the Other ethnic grouping was the widest, while the distribution for the Pākehā/European students was the narrowest. Note that the 5th and 95th percentiles of achievement for the students in the Pasifika, Asian, and Other ethnic grouping should be treated with caution as there are few students at these ends of the distribution due to the smaller number of students in these ethnic groupings overall.

Figure 9: Distribution of New Zealand Year 5 science achievement for each ethnic grouping

Note: The distribution and ranges for the students in the Pasifika, Asian, and Other ethnic groupings should be read with caution as there is a lot of uncertainty at the extremes of the distribution.
Standard errors are presented in parentheses.

Benchmarks for ethnic groupings

Within all ethnic groupings, there were students who reached the advanced benchmark; in terms of the benchmark definitions, they demonstrated the ability to complete tasks requiring applying knowledge and understanding of scientific processes and relationships in beginning scientific inquiry. Similarly, within all ethnic groupings there were students who did not reach the low benchmark; that is, they did not demonstrate the ability to complete a reasonable amount of the simplest science tasks which TIMSS seeks to measure.

Higher proportions of Asian and Pākehā/European students reached the advanced benchmark compared with each of the other ethnic groupings (as shown in Table 14). Around one-third of Pasifika students did not reach the low benchmark, while just under a quarter of Māori students did not reach this low benchmark.

Table 14: Proportion of Year 5 students reaching each international benchmark, by ethnic grouping

Note: Standard errors are presented in parentheses.

Another way of looking at this information is to examine the composition of the group who did not reach the low benchmark. Thirteen percent of New Zealand students did not reach this benchmark as shown in Figure 10. The majority of these students were Pākehā/European (4.1%) or Māori (4.6%). However, Māori and Pasifika students were over-represented in this lower-achieving group compared to their proportions in the population.

Figure 10: Ethnic composition of the students who did not reach the low benchmark

Note: The values presented in the pie chart are proportions of the whole population and therefore add to 13%, the proportion of students in the ‘below low’ group.

Trends in mean science achievement for ethnic groupings

Māori, Pasifika, and Asian students all demonstrated significant gains in science achievement, on average, between 1994 and 2002. In contrast, Pākehā/European and Other students showed no change over the eight years. However, between 2002 and 2006 the average performances of Māori and Pasifika students returned to the lower levels of achievement observed in 1994. Lower achievement in 2006 compared with 2002 was also observed for students in the Other ethnic grouping (see Table 15). Asian students in 2006 had the same mean science achievement in 2006 as in 2002 and thus maintained the significant increase observed between 1994 and 2002.

Table 15: Trends in science achievement 1994 to 2006 by ethnic grouping

Science achievement of boys and girls within ethnic groups

As mentioned earlier, there was no significant difference in mean science achievement between boys and girls in TIMSS 2006/07. This result was also observed when gender differences were examined within each of the ethnic groups, with only one exception. For the Pākehā/European, Asian, Māori, and Other ethnic groupings, there was no significant difference between the girls and the boys. However, Pasifika girls (441) had higher mean science achievement than Pasifika boys (421).

Science achievement by regularity of English speaking at home

Most students reported that they always or almost always spoke the language of the test (in this case English) at home (87% - 74% always and 13% almost always).² Few students (1%) reported that they never spoke English at home. Students who always or almost always spoke English at home had higher science achievement, on average, than those who sometimes or never spoke English at home (see Figure 11). This pattern of higher average achievement for those who spoke English at home was also evident across the previous three cycles of TIMSS (see Caygill, Sturrock, & Chamberlain, 2007). However, it is interesting to note that the difference between these two groups of students has reduced over time from 95 scale score points in 1994 to 61 scale score points in 2006.

Figure 11: Year 5 mean science scores by regularity of English speaking at home

Notes: The bars on the graph represent the proportions of Year 5 students while the points represent mean scores. Lines extending from the points represent the 95% confidence interval, i.e. the range within which we are 95 percent confident that the true population value lies.
Standard errors are presented in parentheses.

Science achievement by country of birth

Another factor that interacts with language and ethnicity is the immigrant status of the student and their parents. This information was collected in TIMSS by asking the student if they and their parents were born in New Zealand. Around one fifth of students had neither parent born in New Zealand, one fifth had only one parent born in New Zealand and the rest had both parents born in New Zealand. One quarter of students were born outside of New Zealand. Of these students born out of New Zealand, nearly half of them (44%) came to New Zealand as school age children.

Science achievement was lower for those students born outside of New Zealand, on average, compared with the New Zealand born students (46 scale score points difference). The majority of the students born outside of New Zealand were Pākehā/European in ethnic origin, as shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12: Proportions of students born out of New Zealand by ethnic grouping

Note: The values presented in the bar are proportions of the whole population and therefore add to 26%, the proportion of students in the ‘born out of NZ’ group.

Interaction of use of English at home, ethnicity and country of birth

In order to confirm the relationships between use of English at home, ethnicity, country of birth and science achievement and also to see how they interacted together, multiple-regression techniques were used. Only these background characteristics were included in the investigation. The resulting statistical model showed that speaking English infrequently at home, belonging to the Māori or Pasifika ethnic grouping, and being born outside of New Zealand, were all associated with lower science achievement when other factors were taken into account.³ The model also demonstrates that all of these three background characteristics were significant when explaining differences in science achievement. Note that differences in achievement were smaller when the other factors were taken into account. For example, the difference between those who regularly spoke English at home and those who did not was reduced from 61 scale score points when analysed in isolation to 38 scale score points in the model. However, there are a limited number of factors included in this model. Taking into account socio-economic or educational resource factors may change this result (see the section later in this report entitled Discussion of interactions).
 

Footnotes

1. Based on enrolment information supplied by parents.
2. In TIMSS 2006, as in 1994 and 1998, students who had the majority of their teaching in te reo Māori were excluded from the assessment. See technical notes and definitions for further details of exclusions.
   
3. The model showed that when the other factors were taken into account, on average, speaking English infrequently (-38 scale score points or ssp), Māori (-63 ssp), Pasifika (-72 ssp), born outside New Zealand (-37 ssp) were all associated with lower achievement.