in the classroom
The average socioeconomic profile of a students ’ school is strongly associated with their performance on PISA .
Succeeding despite the odds
A deeper reading of PISA data .
By Wade Zaglas
An article published on the EduResearch Matters website recently highlights that one in five of all Australian students are not meeting minimum levels of reading .
And , while that conclusion might be shocking to some , when we further categorise the students as being either disadvantaged or advantaged , the figures are far worse and demonstrate how issues such as socioeconomic background need to be carefully considered in the interpretation of such data .
According to research undertaken by the Australian Council of Education Research ( ACER ), one in three disadvantaged students are not meeting the minimum levels of reading and maths . On the other end of the spectrum , however , only one in 10 advantaged students are falling into this category .
Despite the gloomy statistics , Dr Sue Thompson , deputy CEO ( research ) at ACER , and the national manager of the PISA project , believes that “ some students beat the odds and succeed ”, invoking the critical idea of “ academic resilience ”.
“ The good news is we can fix this but there is a long way to go . One key difference between the resilient and nonresilient is the growth mindset , a belief that one ’ s ability can increase over time , that intelligence is not fixed but changeable ,” Thompson said .
“ In addition to scoring lower on tests such as PISA , research has shown that students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds have poorer educational outcomes than their more affluent peers on a range of measures , including school completion .”
Yet , despite this association between socioeconomic disadvantage and poorer educational outcomes , a small number of students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds do excel at school , Thompson said , bucking the trend once they have harnessed academic resilience .
READING MUST BE ENGAGING AND SUITED TO STUDENTS ’ INTERESTS It ’ s been long held by literacy experts that learning to read – for almost most of us – is a difficult task and can only be acquired through ongoing motivation and persistence .
However , “ it has been suggested that enjoyment of reading and motivation to master tasks may be two manifestations of academic resilience ,” Thompson says .
“ Similarly , Dweck suggests goal-oriented students tend to be academically resilient and exhibit higher levels of confidence than others , and they are likely to seek challenges and be persistent .”
WHOLE SCHOOL INFLUENCES “ Prior research has found that the average socioeconomic profile of a students ’ school is strongly associated with their performance on PISA ,” the ACER deputy CEO says .
“ While a substantial proportion of academically resilient Australian students attend schools in the lowest socioeconomic group , far more resilient students than non-resilient students attended schools in the highest two quarters of aggregated socioeconomic background , suggesting that attending schools with more advantaged peers may play a role in a student ’ s chance of being academically resilient .”
DOES GENDER PLAY A BIGGER ROLE THAN WE THOUGHT ? Given that females do better than males in PISA reading literacy in all eligible OECD countries , Thompson says that gender is likely to be a major factor in whether a student is academically resilient .
However , research has found that while a larger percentage of Australian female students than male students were academically resilient , there was no statistically significant difference between their reading literacy scores . This suggests the resilient males are even more resilient than their female peers .
In constructing a table that would analyse males ’ and females ’ mean scores for the PISA 2018 result on reading literacy , another surprise was quickly discovered . The table highlighted how the entire female cohort was considerably above their male peers . However , it also showed that more female students identified as being less resilient than males in the sample .
THE IMPORTANCE OF A GROWTH MINDSET Research has shown that a growth mindset correlates to not only better academic outcomes , but also a tempering of the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage and gender .
To corroborate this research , Thompson states that the latest PISA data supports the theory , “ as Australia ’ s academically resilient students were more likely than non-academically resilient students to hold a growth mindset ”.
“ Moreover , an overwhelming eighty per cent of academically resilient students disagreed with the statement ‘ your intelligence is something about you that you can ’ t change very much ’, compared to just 41 per cent of non-resilient students and 70 per cent of Australian students on average ,” she said . ■
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