Conclusions for numeracy performance
Minimum proficiency levels
The performance of the grade five students in Marshall Islands is lower than that of the grade five students in the region; 58% of Marshall Islands students performed at or above the expected minimum proficiency level compared to 67% in the region.
In grade seven, 57% of the students were at or above the expected minimum proficiency level, compared to 72% in the region. It is important to note that there are more students in grades five and seven in Marshall Islands performing at the lower levels (L0–L1) than those in the region.
Gender
In grade five, 62% of girls compared to 54% of boys performed at or above the expected minimum proficiency level. This difference in performance is also seen in the mean scores across the numeracy strands, with the biggest difference being18 points in the ‘Operations’ strand.
In grade seven, 62% of girls and 53% boys performed at or above the expected minimum proficiency level. The mean performance scores show that girls performed better than boys in grade seven, particularly in the ‘Data & chance’ strand, by 22 points.
School authority
Grade five and seven students in non-government schools performed better than students in government schools.
In both grade levels, the difference in mean scores between the school authorities is quite pronounced in all the numeracy strands, more so in the ‘Data & chance’ strand for grade five.
School locality
Grade five students in non-urban schools performed better than students in urban schools. The mean numeracy scores were 492 points displayed by students in non-urban schools and 456 points by those in urban schools. The difference in scores is consistent with all the numeracy strands.
The performance of the grade seven students in urban schools is consistent with those in non-urban schools, with small variation.
Coding
The coding data for numeracy show that the grade five and grade seven students were persistent in attempting the questions, with a low proportion of students leaving questions blank. The coding data also show that, for both grade five and grade seven, students struggled with questions involving fractions, place values and telling time difference. The biggest struggle was with solving problems.
Trend performance
There was a significant increase in the percentage of grade five students who performed at or above expected proficiency levels, from 69% in 2012, to 79% to 2015 and to 85% in 2018, but it fell in 2021 to 58%.
In grade seven, the percentage of students at or above the expected minimum proficiency level decreased from 2012 to 2015, increased to 76% in 2018 but dropped once more in 2021 to 57%.
