Socio-economic status had a significant effect on the reading comprehension and mathematics test scores achieved by Australian 14-year-olds between 1975 and 1998, suggesting a growing difference between Australian schools along socio-economic lines.

This is among the key findings of the latest report in the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) research program managed by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training.

The study examined student achievement scores on tests of reading comprehension and mathematics from five studies that tested the literacy and numeracy levels of 14-year-olds in Australian schools conducted between 1975 and 1998, as well as trends for all students, and for smaller groups of students. Students' results were discussed through examining means, medians and the distributions of results and changes over time. Results were reported by socioeconomic status, language background, gender and location.  

Socio-economic status, as measured by parents' occupation, was found to have had a significant effect on the scores achieved by students. Throughout the 1975-1998 period, students whose parents were employed in professional and managerial occupations had the highest average scores and students whose parents were production workers or labourers had the lowest. Between 1975 and 1998, the gap between these two groups of students at an individual level narrowed.   However, at the same time, the gap in scores widened between schools with high concentrations of professional parents and all other schools.  

"Although the overall achievement levels of students remained stable between 1975-1998, there are notable differences between students by socioeconomic status, both between individual students and between schools," said Deputy Director of ACER, Dr John Ainley.

"We found that within the same school a student who comes from a higher socioeconomic group will achieve better test results than a student from a lower socio-economic group. Likewise, students attending a school that has a higher concentration of students from higher socioeconomic groups will also achieve higher scores in both reading and mathematics than students attending schools with lower concentrations of students from higher socioeconomic groups. It is important to note that this school-level influence has increased since 1975 ," Dr Ainley said.

The report also found that there is a strong indication that, as a group, students from homes where English is not the main language spoken have improved their achievement both in reading comprehension and in mathematics.   While the average achievement on tests of reading comprehension for students of a non-English speaking background was lower than the average for students from English speaking backgrounds, their achievement levels improved significantly over the period and the gap was narrowed substantially. For example, between 1975 and 1998 there was a decrease by about one-half in the difference in reading comprehension between students from homes where English is the main language spoken and students from homes where another language is spoken.

Other results include no significant differences recorded between students from non-metropolitan schools and students from metropolitan schools in both reading comprehension and mathematics; female students have higher achievement scores in reading comprehension but male students scored higher in mathematics; and the widest gaps in average test scores remained between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students for both reading comprehension and mathematics.

Further information is available in the report, Achievement in Literacy and Numeracy by Australian 14-year-olds, 1975-1998 , by ACER researcher Dr Sheldon Rothman. The report is Research Report Number 29 in the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) research program jointly managed by ACER and the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST).

Print copies of the report may be purchased from ACER Press

Tel: (03) 9277 5447; Fax: (03) 9560 4799; Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

The report can be downloaded free of charge from the ACER web site.

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