Performance of children from non-English speaking background on the New South Wales basic skills tests of numeracy: Issues of test bias and language proficiency  

Oleh:

Davies, Alan

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Language Culture and Curriculum (Full Text) vol. 4 no. 2 (1991), page 149-161.
Fulltext: 4.2.149-161.pdf (796.43KB)

Ketersediaan

Perpustakaan PKBB Nomor Panggil: 405/LCC/4 Non-tandon: tidak ada Tandon: 1

Lihat Detail Induk

Isi artikel

Basic Skills Tests in Literacy and Numeracy were administered to students in primary schools in New South Wales in 1989. The tests were given to all Year 6 students (n=53/737) and to a sample of Year 3 students (n=2/327). The results show a large and consistent advantage in favour of students from an English-speaking background. In this paper, the tests themselves are examined to see if cultural bias could be a partial explanation of the poor performance' of children from a non-English-speaking background (NESB). Little or no evidence for cultural bias was found. On the whole, items that proved difficult for NESB children proved difficult for English- speaking children also, and with a few exceptions there were few items that could could be considered, with any plausibility, as biased against NESB children. On the other hand, a good many' items were found to contain phrases and sentences that were unnecessarily complex or unclear in reference. A measure of Lexical Density (Halliday, 1989; Richards, PIatt & Weber, 1985) showed that some items had a density found usually only in adult and scientific texts.

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