Assessing pupils' abilities

This essay will discuss race and ethnicity as a strong factor in the educational attainment of students in the UK, using evaluation of several contemporary studies, analysis of important factors, underpinning their conclusions and a short focused study I conducted on Oxfordshire educational achievement by ethnic group and its conclusions.

2008

The views expressed in this report are the authors' and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

2005

DESCRIPTION OF THE SON-R 2,5-7..........................................................................................4 The subtests of the SON-R 2,5-7 ........................................................................................5 Characteristics of administration of the SON-R 2,5-7.........................................................9 Performance of immigrant children on the SON-R 2,5-7 ...................................................12

Journal of Labor Economics, 2013

We assess whether ethnic minority pupils are subject to low teacher expectations. We exploit the English testing system of "quasi-blind" externally marked tests and "non-blind" internal assessment to compare differences in these assessment methods between White and ethnic minority pupils. We find evidence that some ethnic groups are systematically "under-assessed" relative to their White peers, while some are "over-assessed". We propose a stereotype model in which a teacher's local experience of an ethnic group affects assessment of current pupils; this is supported by the data.

Journal of Educational Measurement, 2004

Research has suggested that inappropriate or misfitting response patterns may have detrimental effects on the quality and validity of measurement. It has been suggested that factors like language and ethnic background are related to the generation of misfitting response patterns but the empirical research on this is rather poor. This research analyses data from three testing cycles of the National Curriculum tests in mathematics in England using the Rasch model. It is found that pupils having English as an additional language and pupils belonging to ethnic minorities are significantly more likely to generate aberrant response patterns. However, within the groups of pupils belonging to ethnic minorities, those who speak English as an additional language are not significantly more likely to generate misfitting response patterns. This may indicate that the ethnic background effect is more significant than the effect of the first language spoken. The results suggest that pupils having English as an additional language and pupils belonging to ethnic minorities are mismeasured significantly more than the remainder of pupils by taking the mathematics National Curriculum tests. More research is needed to generalise the results to other subjects and contexts.

University of Strathclyde, 2022

In the UK, inequalities in education based on intersectionality is crucial for children as education is one of the fundamental human rights. As a multicultural nation, ensuring educational equality is essential for the growth of society as a nation, including its natives and immigrants. This paper is written mainly by focusing on the impact of ethnicity on primary and secondary school children’s academic attainment in the UK. A traditional critical review process is followed systematically by applying a narrative synthesis approach to analyse findings from published research papers and government reports in this topic area. The research questions are set to identify whether there is any relationship between ethnicity and academic attainment of children from ethnic minorities compared to the ethnic majority (White British), to what extent SES can explain the attainment gap, and how the ethnocultural factors influence this academic achievement inequality. The result of the analysis suggests a significant achievement gap among different ethnic groups, which can be explained by the combined effects of SES and other cultural factors based on differences in ethnic backgrounds.

Research by the Department of Education at Oxford University shows gaps in educational achievement at age 16 have decreased substantially over the last 25 years, particularly in the attainment of different ethnic groups. The research shows pupils from most ethnic minority groups are now on average achieving GCSE results that are as good or better than their White British peers. The study by Professor Steve Strand, commissioned for the Department for Education, draws on data for attainment and ethnicity between 1991 and 2013. It shows that Indian and Chinese pupils are now pulling well ahead of their White British classmates, with Bangladeshi and Black African students improving their GCSE grades significantly and starting to do better, on average, than white British pupils. This is despite the fact that Bangladeshi and black African students are often from very socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds The two lowest achieving groups are currently Black Caribbean and Mixed White and Black Caribbean students, according to the study. Yet, again the longstanding gaps in the academic attainment of these two groups have closed substantially. In 2004, only 24% of black Caribbean pupils achieved five or more GCSE A*-C grades or their equivalent including English and Mathematics (5EM). This was nearly half the rate for white British students (41.6%) and a gap of 17.6 percentage points. Nearly 10 years on, in 2013, this gap had narrowed to just 7.2 percentage points (53.3% vs. 60.5%). The study shows that the ethnic gap has also reduced in relative terms. While in 2004 the black Caribbean-white British gap was twice as large as the gender gap, by 2013 it was actually smaller (7.2% points compared to a gender gap of 10.1 percentage points). However both gaps are substantially smaller than the socio-economic gap, with only 37.9% of the most economically disadvantaged students (those from families entitled to Free School Meals) achieving 5EM compared to 64.6% of those not entitled to FSM, a gap of 26.7 percentage points. Steve Strand, Professor of Education, commented: ‘These findings show that we have to consider how ethnic factors overlap with social and economic disadvantage, and not treat them as separate dimensions. Huge strides have been made in schools in England in closing the ethnic gap in educational attainment. These results show what can be achieved with targeted funding, particularly the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant that ran until 2012/2013, and the strong focus through policies, including Excellence in Cities, and programmes through the National Strategies. ‘Children disadvantaged for social and economic reasons now do better at school than in the past. In the late 1980s, the chance of getting good exam grades at age 16 for students from well-off families was seven times higher than for children from less advantaged backgrounds. Now children from well off homes are around three times more likely. The gap is still too large but the data shows it is possible to reduce the seemingly intractable social and economic divide. We have to hope that redistributive funding, such as the Pupil Premium Grant, can bring more progress in closing gaps that still exist.’

British Educational Research Journal, 2010

Tens of thousands of young people leave school with no or very few qualifications in England. This paper asks: what is the ethnic dimension of the low achievement problem? We focus on six aspects, using the National Pupil Database: whether the relation between ethnicity and incidence of low achievement is symmetrical with the relation between ethnicity and achievement; whether economic disadvantage is an equally large risk factor for low achievement among pupils of all ethnicities; whether the relationship of ethnicity with low achievement varies by peer group; whether the relationship between gender and chances of low achievement differs by ethnic group; whether the relation between ethnicity and low achievement changes with age; and lastly, whether there is sorting by ethnicity into schools of better or worse quality. We find that: (1) the relationship between low achievement and achievement is not symmetrical and, therefore, that it is valuable to measure low achievement directly rather than as the negative of achievement; (2) economic disadvantage has a stronger effect on White students than those of ethnic minorities; (3) the relationship between ethnicity and low achievement does vary with age; (4) ethnic peer-group effects are not significant; (5) the gender gap in the probability of low achievement is significantly larger for most ethnic groups compared with the White group, at least by one measure of low achievement; and (6) attending poorer-quality schools is part of the explanation of differential ethnic minority performance. We offer explanations for our findings and for the presence and/or persistence of inter-ethnic differences in the chances of low achievement.

Working Paper Series in …, 2011

We rigorously test for ethnic discrimination in high school grading in Sweden. A random sample of the national tests in the Swedish language is graded both non-blind by the student"s own teacher and blind without any identifying information. The increase in the test score due to non-blind grading is significantly higher for students with Swedish background compared to students with foreign background. This discrimination effect is sizeable, about 10 % of the mean or 20 % of a standard deviation of the blind test score.

2012

Gender, racial, and ethnic differences occur in vocational and cognitive ability assessments when the average scores of various groups are not equal. Results of such assessments indicate that not all groups are equally represented at all points of the assessment continuum. Many attempts to reduce or minimize existing group differences have been unsuccessful, and current research has failed to account fully for the sources of these differences. This chapter provides a summary of group differences on vocational assessments. The information is intended to provide a broad understanding of the core issues in the assessment process and provide accurate information concerning the magnitude of existing group differences. (Contains 37 references and a table.) (Author) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Racial and Ethnic Difference in Performance By Nathan S. Hartman Michael A. McDaniel Deborah L. Whetzel U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Offic...