Is Student Achievement on Standardized EQAO Testing Reflected ...

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Abstract

In Ontario, Canada, the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) is responsible for testing student literacy and numeracy skills across the province. Since its inception, this standardized testing has generated much controversy. The scientific community takes a critical look at various aspects of the process. This longitudinal study addresses one of these concerns: the link between students' academic performance in literacy in 1st to 6th grade as compared to their achievement on EQAO testing in literacy. The sample of 2052 students is particular in that all were enrolled in French schools across Northern Ontario when writing the French EQAO test, however in many cases this was not always their first or dominant language. For the purposes of this study, the sample was divided into 2 groups: students without an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and students with an IEP. This study also aims to analyze the influence of factors such as gender, language and classroom accommodations on literacy measures (i.e. reading and writing tasks). Though the provincial testing program in literacy and numeracy has been developed in Ontario, Canada over the past 10 years, little is known on how accurately this costly process reflects students' academic achievement.. When comparing classroom results in grades 1 to 6 to EQAO testing results in grades 3 and 6, the results of this study varied, showing very weak correlations in some cases (i.e. G = 0.19*) to strong and statistically significant correlations in others (i.e. G = 0.79***).