Reading progress of targeted learners at Wintec in 2020

This report outlines the reading progress achieved by targeted level-2 (L2) and level-3 (L3) learners at Wintec in 2020. These findings have to be viewed in the context of other annual reports that track literacy and numeracy progress at the institute (Greyling, Ahmad and Wallace, 2019a, b; 2020a, b). In this report we include multi-year performance comparisons for reading. The main findings for 2019 are presented as cross-tabulations, following the same format as in earlier reports. It was found that Māori and Pasifika learners performed at levels lower than those for other ethnicities, with Maori learners’ reading performance declining and Pasifika learners’ performance improving somewhat from the 2019 baseline. Other cross-tabulations show the distribution of reading step scores at the start and progress not only for the full cohort but also by ethnicity, funding type, and centre of origin. Of the targeted 588 learners, 35.5% (209) progressed to exemption-level scores. A paired t-test yielded a statistically significant difference for scale scores at start and progress. Cross-tabulated data display both the regress and progress in reading steps. As in earlier reports, we replicated the LN assessment tool algorithm for calculating learner progress. The results showed that the algorithm had a disparate impact, defining threshold levels for statistically significant gain that were far above the step-4 cut-off point where no further testing was required. For 2020, the algorithm shows that only 19% of the targeted learners achieved statistically significant gain, 6% below the Tertiary Education Commission’s (TEC’s) 2015 25% target. Although we continue to argue in favour of cross-tabulations as an alternative to the current algorithm, we note with concern that both measures indicate a downward trend