Council of Ministers of Education, Canada

• Overview
• Pan-Canadian Assessment Program (PCAP)
  • Overview
  • PCAP 2023
  • PCAP 2019
  • PCAP 2016
  • PCAP 2013
  • PCAP 2010
  • PCAP-13 2007
  • SAIP 1996-2004
• Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
• Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)
• Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS)
• International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS)
• Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)
• Teacher Education and Development Study - Mathematics (TEDS-M)
• Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)
• Learning Assessment Data for Researchers

 

 

PCAP-13 2007: Jurisdictional Profiles and Achievement Equity is part of a series of research projects in which data from the 2007 assessment are used to examine questions of interest to education policy-makers and stakeholders in Canada. It focuses on the factors that contribute to jurisdictional differences in reading scores.

 

The report reviews the literature on factors contributing to school achievement, focusing explicitly on studies of jurisdictional and official-language differences and based mainly on results from almost two decades of national and international large-scale assessments.

 

The term “population” is used throughout this report to refer to the combination of jurisdictions (provinces and territories) and official-language groups (English and French). It can be challenging to model population differences because of the small number of populations in Canada. This has led to the development of a model that used variables from the contextual questionnaires that were administered to students, teachers, and school principals to build profiles of reference populations. These reference-population profiles were Ontario-English or Quebec-French.

 

These profiles were then used as a reference against which the other populations could be compared so that the effect on reading scores of variables related to student, teacher, and school characteristics could be examined.

 

The report suggests that differences within Canadian jurisdictions are larger than those between them. Although many factors contribute to jurisdictional differences, none seems to be decisive. Differences between the two jurisdictions with the highest and lowest reading scores for each language group (Ontario and Prince Edward Island, respectively, for English and Quebec and New Brunswick, respectively, for French) did reveal certain patterns of interest, some of which are listed below:

 

• Both of the highest-performing populations (Ontario-English and Quebec-French) have more 13‑year-old students in Grade 8 than the lowest-performing provinces (Prince Edward Island-English and New Brunswick-French), which actually have more 13-year-old students in Grade 9.

 

• Both of the highest-performing populations have more students born outside of Canada.

 

• Teachers in the highest-performing populations expect more homework from their students, and these students meet this expectation.

 

• Both of the high-performing populations have higher percentages of classes with more than 30 students than the low-performing populations have.

 

• More schools in the high-performing populations are larger and are in larger communties.

 

• Higher teacher-assessment skill is positively related to achievement.

 

• Students in private schools, especially in Quebec, have higher reading achievement than those in public schools have.

 

More generally, high average achievement and a high degree of equity are not conflicting goals. Some countries, including Canada, have managed to combine high achievement with relatively low differences between the highest- and lowest-performing students.