Gerry Shiel gerry.shiel@erc.ie World Beaters or Underachievers? The Performance of High Achievers and Struggling Readers in Ireland Gerry Shiel gerry.shiel@erc.ie

Overview Why a concern with high achievers and struggling readers? PISA’s benchmarks for high and low achievers: Proficiency levels and percentile ranks The performance of PISA students on the Junior Certificate Examination – should we be concerned? What models of reading proficiency tell us about high- and low-achievers Towards research and policy for the future.

PISA Framework for Reading Literacy (2003)

Sample Texts / Tasks The Gift (continuous, narrative) Labour Force (non-continuous, schematic)

Proficiency Levels

PISA Reading Achievement Scale / Proficiency Levels

How Our ‘Struggling’ Readers Performed (2003) Fewer students in Ireland were at or below proficiency Level 1 (11.0% compared to an OECD average of 19.1%). [Level 2 has been interpreted as a ‘basic minimum’ by the OECD] But. . . Just 5.7% of students in Finland are at or below Level 1 Score of Irish students in Ireland at the 10th percentile (401.3) is significantly higher than the corresponding OECD average score at the same marker (360.8)

How Our Higher-Achieving Readers Performed (2003) More students in Ireland performed at Levels 4 and 5 (35.5% compared to OECD average of 29.6%) But. . . Scores of Irish students at the 90th and 95th percentile ranks (622 and 647) were not significantly different from the corresponding OECD country average scores (617 and 646 respectively)

How Our Higher-Achieving Readers Performed (2000 vs. 2003) Significant decline in achievement at 75th, 90th and 95th percentile ranks But. . . decline at these markers also observed in Canada, Denmark, Hong-Kong China, Russian Federation Questions over linking / equating procedures Fewer Irish students at Level 5 in 2003 (9.3%) than in 2000 (14.3%)

JC English and PISA Performance – Junior Certificate Performance Scale Mean Scores Comparison involved students who took JC English in 2002 or 2003 (93.9% of the PISA cohort in Ireland). Junior Certificate Performance Scale places students’ English scores on a scale of 1-12, with a higher Grade A worth 12, and a Foundation Grade F worth 1 point

PISA Mean Score by JCPS Level

PISA Proficiency Cross-Tabulated with JC English Level (2000 and 2003)

School-level Variables and Reading (Model-based) 19.8% of variance in achievement due to school-level variables Two variables at the school level in the final model: Disciplinary climate in mathematics classes (not associated with SES); and SES (Percent JCE Fee Waiver) No interactions between school-level and student-level variables Attitude to reading/interest in reading not included

Contribution of School-level Variables to Scores

Student-Level Variables and Reading Achievement Gender: Female 21.5 (vs. male) Lone parent: dual = 13.3 points (vs. lone) No. of siblings: four+ = – 19.3 (vs one) Home educational resources: low = – 14.5 (vs. high) Absence: 3+ days = – 35.3 (vs. no days)

Student Socio-economic Status and Reading Achievement

Number of Books in the Home: Contributions to Fitted Scores

Discussion Topics Are proficiency levels a useful way of reporting on performance in reading? Why are our ‘lower-achieving’ pupils holding their own in reading literacy? Is this an artefact of the low proportion of non-national students in the system here? Or do structural aspects of the educational system explain this?

More Discussion Topics Should pupils with very low reading proficiency ‘pass’ Junior Certificate English? Why are our higher-achieving readers under-performing? Why are our highest-achieving students doing less well in 2003 than in 2000? Do we provide adequate instructional activities to challenge our highest achievers?