School performance of immigrant students in Finland: Results of - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

School performance of immigrant students in Finland: Results of PISA 2012

• Dr. Tanja Kirjavainen

National Audit Office of Finland 8th Performance Auditing Seminar on INTOS AI working group on IT-Audit 28.-29.4.2016 Brasilia, Brasilia

Content of the presentation

• Purpose of the performance audit
• PISA data and the Finnish sample
• Some main results of the audit
• Concluding remarks

Purpose of the performance audit

• Does compulsory schooling (grades 1-9) provide

equal opportunities for immigrant students compared to native students in terms of student achievement, preparedness in further studies and development? (Based on Basic Education Act)

• One of the subquestions:

– Are there differences in school achievement between

native and immigrant students after controlling for the background of students?

Immigrant children in Finland

5 000 10 000 15 000 20 000 25 000 1990 2014 1990 2014 1990 2014 Foreign nationals Foreign borns Foreigners Foreign population in 1990 and 2014 Source: Statistics Finland 5-9-years old 10-14-years old 15-19-years old 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5% 6%

Foreign studentsin basiceducation

Number of foreign students % share of foreign students

PISA 2012

• PISA (Programme for International Student

Assessment)

– Internationally standardized achievement assessment

conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

– Administered to 15 -year old students in schools in all

OECD countries (34 countries) and in a number of other countries (31 countries)

– PISA 2012 assesses students’ mathematics (main area),

reading and scientific skills

– Comprehensive background information on students and

schools (student questionnaire, school questionnaire)

PISA 2012 Finnish sample and immigrant students

• 8 828 students were sampled in 311 schools

– In Finland students are normally at the 9th grade (final year of

compulsory schooling)

• Oversampling of immigrant students (1 300 students)

to provide the possibility to study them in more detail

– 691 first generation immigrants – 609 second generation immigrants – information on the birth country of first generation immigrants and of

parents of second generation immigrants

• largest countries of origin (Russia, Somalia, Estonia, Former

Y ugoslav republics and Irak)

Analysis of the data

• Different statistical models were estimated in
• rder to evaluate the performance gap

between the immigrant and native students.

• STATA statistical program was used in the

analysis (survey methods and pv-module)

Immigrant/ native gap in PISA scores in Finland

PISA scores Immigrant/ native gap

519 524 545 522 527 549 449 460 467 425 413 425 100 200 300 400 500 600 M athematics Reading Science

All Native

• 2. generation immigrant
• 1. generation immigrant

Control variables: gender, age, socioeconomic status, grade, language spoken at home, age of arrival; * * * Significant at 1 % risk level, * * 5 %, * 10 % Control variables: gender, age, socioeconomic status, grade, language spoken at home, age of arrival; * * * Significant at 1 % risk level, * * 5 %, * 10 %

• 73* * *
• 67* * *
• 82* * *
• 97* * *
• 114* * *
• 124* * *
• 45* * *
• 34* * *
• 51* * *
• 20* *
• 21*
• 32* * *
• 140
• 120
• 100
• 80
• 60
• 40
• 20

M athematics Reading Science

No controls 2. generation immigrant No controls 1. generation immigrant With controls 2. generation immigrant With controls 1. generation immigrant

Immigrant/ native gap in PISA scores in Finland by country of origin

Gap after controlling for student background, grade, language spoken at home and age

• f arrival. * * * Significant at 1 % risk level, * * 5 %, * 10 %.

Gap after controlling for student background, grade, language spoken at home and age

• f arrival. * * * Significant at 1 % risk level, * * 5 %, * 10 %.
• 27* *
• 39* * *
• 99* * *
• 16
• 30
• 30*
• 40* * *
• 42* * *
• 18
• 21
• 63* * *

6

• 76* * *
• 30
• 66* * *
• 39* *
• 120
• 100
• 80
• 60
• 40
• 20

20 Estonia or Sweden Russia Somalia China or Thailand Turkey Irak Former Yugoslavia Other country

M athematics

• 2. generation immigrant
• 1. generation immigrant
• 17
• 24*
• 90* * *
• 23
• 27
• 26
• 30* *
• 28* * *
• 6
• 24
• 63* *
• 5
• 57*
• 20
• 49* *
• 33
• 120
• 100
• 80
• 60
• 40
• 20

Estonia or Sweden Russia Somalia China or Thailand Turkey Irak Former Yugoslavia Other country

Reading

• 2. generation immigrant
• 1. generation immigrant

19

• 7
• 11

26 22

• 25
• 41
• 16
• 18
• 20
• 16
• 16
• 14
• 12
• 12
• 23
• 18
• 4
• 21
• 10

2

• 4

22 15

• 32
• 34
• 20
• 19
• 49
• 7
• 15
• 9
• 6
• 8
• 31

5

• 4
• 7
• 13
• 60
• 50
• 40
• 30
• 20
• 10

10 20 30 Traditional immigrant countries Australia Canada UK (excl. Scotland) UK (Scotland) USA Nordic countries Denmark Finland Norway Sweden Estonia Northern Europe Austria Belgium France Germany Netherlands Switzerland Southern Europe Greece Italy Portugal Spain

• 2. generation immigrants
• 1. generation immigrants

Immigrant/ native gap in PISA scores in Finland and some other countries

Gap in mathematics after controlling for student background and some school factors

Concluding remarks

• Finland is one of the highest

scoring countries in PIS A

• Performance gaps between native

and immigrant students is large and larger than elsewhere in Northern Europe at the age of 15 even after controlling student background

– partly because of high scoring

natives.

– partly because of less experience

in schooling of immigrant students.

– not because of attitude since

immigrant students have a more positive attitude towards school than native students.

• The performance of second

generation immigrants is in some cases lower than the performance of first generation immigrants after controlling for the background of students

• Ministry of Education and Culture

should

– ensure that the support and

language-training is at adequate levels.

– examine if the weakest

performing immigrant students should be provided with additional support to ensure integration and ability to continue their studies.

Concluding remarks

• PISA data provided a good

basis for auditing the schooling performance of immigrant students in Finland

• Freely available
• Extensive background

information on students, parents and schools

• Possibility to make

cross-country comparisons

• Use of PISA data requires

quite advanced knowledge

• f statistical methods

– sampling and sampling

weights, use of plausible values, missing values in some variables

• Requires good computation

power

• OECD provides good guides

for the use and analysis of PISA data

• www.oecd.org/ pisa

Thank you!