A jurisdiction-wide zero-stakes Foundational Skills Assessment administered in grade 4 in British Columbia, Canada, used a three-point scale to publicly disseminate aggregate school/district-level results, and a five-point scale to convey results to students/parents. For a variety of long-term outcomes, a regression discontinuity analysis shows a…

Data from international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) of schooled populations indicate that boys have considerably poorer literacy skills than girls. New evidence from a household-based ILSA--Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC)--indicates that the gender gap in literacy is negligible, even though…

In gender differential item functioning (DIF) research it is assumed that all members of a gender group have similar item response patterns and therefore generalizations from group level to subgroup and individual levels can be made accurately. However DIF items do not necessarily disadvantage every member of a gender group to the same degree,…

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the…

In a sample of 128 Canadian junior kindergarten children (66 boys), we examined sex differences in emergent literacy and behaviour when listening to and interacting with books of four types: alphabet books with simple text and illustrations, traditional alphabet books with complex text and illustrations, alphabet eBooks, and illustrated…

This study reports on one school district's attempt to address reading gaps in boys, Aboriginal students, and special education students at 1st grade by implementing Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) to supplement classroom reading instruction. Findings indicate that compared to previous years, when PALS was not used, students in this study…

This report provides information about the performance of Aboriginal students (including adults) in British Columbia's public schools. Ten sections include: (1) Introduction; (2) Student and District Context (Kindergarten-Grade 12), 2016/17-2020/21; (3) Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) Grades 4 and 7, 2016/17-2020/21; (4) Graduation Assessments…

We examined the reading strategies of boys and girls and identified those determining academic achievement in 13-year-old Canadian students. Students from each province and one territory (N = 20,094) answered a questionnaire on, among others, reading strategies. T-test results showed that girls use these strategies more regularly compared to boys.…

Bourdieu's theory of cultural and social reproduction posits that students' habitus--learned behavioural and perceptual dispositions rooted in family upbringing--is a formative influence on how they react to their educational environments, affecting academic practices and academic achievement. Although originally conceived as a "class"…

This report supplements Jerrim (2012) where John Jerrim investigated the link between family background and children's reading tests across a series of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Previous studies for the Sutton Trust (Smithers 2012) have suggested that policy and provision for the highly able in…

The Internet has become the primary source for obtaining information at work, at home, and for school. Because Internet reading increasingly is becoming one of the central ways students are acquiring information, in 2016, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) was extended to include ePIRLS--an innovative assessment of online…

Canada's knowledge-based economy--especially the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)--continues to grow. Related changes in the economy, including shifts to globalized markets and an emphasis on innovation and technology, all mean that education is more and more an integral component of economic and social well-being.…

Classmates can influence a student's academic achievement through immediate interactions (e.g., academic help, positive attitudes toward reading) or by sharing tangible or intangible family resources (books, stories of foreign travel). Multilevel analysis of 141,019 fourth-grade students' reading achievements in 33 countries showed that…

This report summarises Year 6 pupils' attainment in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) survey of 2016 in Northern Ireland and explores the context of that attainment. PIRLS is an international comparison study of reading at ages 9-10. PIRLS has a five-yearly cycle. Northern Ireland took part in PIRLS for the second time…

This summary accompanies the national report for Northern Ireland (Sizmur et al., 2017). It outlines the attainment of Year 6 pupils in Northern Ireland in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016 survey and explores the context of that attainment. PIRLS is a study of reading at ages 9-10 and has a five-yearly cycle.…