After the coding and scoring was complete, a wealth of cognitive and contextual data were available. To compile this PILNA 2021 report, a series of statistical analyses were performed on the data to answer three broad questions.

• Are Pacific year four and year six students meeting the expected performance in literacy and numeracy in 2021?
• Are there differences in scores for these groups by gender and over time?
• What is the wider context that these groups of students, their teachers, and their principals or school leaders are experiencing?

These analyses included:

• generating descriptive statistics relating to each group’s distribution of scores, such as means (averages), standard deviations, and standard errors; and
• testing for differences in means between groups to identify true differences in performance (cognitive data) or experiences (contextual data).

Further analyses of the PILNA 2021 data are planned after this report is launched. These analyses will be posted when available.