Get to know » Students » Self-reflections :
Students attitude
Attitudes to school and to certain subjects can shape students’ interactions as they progress through their education. For this reason, it was important to collect information about students' attitudes to learning. The PILNA programme took an approach that incorporated students’ opinions to school overall and to each of the three cognitive domains covered by PILNA: reading, writing and numeracy.
Students were provided with a list of statements for each (such as “I enjoy going to school”) and asked to rate how much they agreed with each statement. Students could respond with ‘Agree a lot’, ‘Agree’, ‘Disagree’, or ‘Disagree a lot’. The statements covered whether students enjoyed the activity.
- whether students enjoyed the activity.
- whether students thought it was important to be good at the activity.
- whether students found the activity easy; and
- whether students thought they did well in the activity.
Additionally, students were asked whether they thought it was important to go to school, if they felt safe at school, and if they felt like they belonged at school.
Student attitudes to subjects and school
Most students in Niue, both year four and year six, reported agreement with all the attitude statements (‘Agree a lot’ or ‘Agree’) about the cognitive domains and school. This shows overall positive attitudes to reading, writing, mathematics and school.
More than 90% of students in Niue reported that they enjoyed going to school (year four, 100%; year six, 92%) and felt that it was important to do so (year four, 100%; year six, 100%). Additionally, a similar proportion of students reported that they felt safe at school (year four, 97%; year six, 89%) and safe travelling to school (year four, 100%; year six, 97%). Most year four and year six students in Niue enjoy schooling, value schooling, and feel safe at school and travelling to school.
When it came to literacy, about nine out of ten students reported that they enjoyed reading (year four, 93%; year six, 89%). A lower proportion of year six students enjoyed writing (76%) than did year four students (86%). About four out of five students reported that they found reading easy (year four, 85%; year six, 75%) but lower proportions found writing easy (year four, 64%; year six, 72%). Overall, lower levels of agreement were seen for questions related to writing than for those about reading.
For mathematics, most students reported enjoyment with the subject (year four, 93%; year six, 84%) and thought the subject was important (year four, 93%; year six, 91%).
Interestingly, the proportions of students who reported doing well in the subjects were higher for year six students than year four students.
What does this mean?
The findings from this PILNA cycle show that a high proportion of students in Niue in both year levels are enjoying reading, writing, and mathematics and identify them as being important. This, and other findings, suggest that students in Niue generally have positive attitudes to school and these foundational subjects.
Higher proportions of year six students also reported doing well in each subject than did year four students. This may mean that student confidence is increasing with more years of schooling.
