Contextual factors that influence the achievement of Australia's Indigenous students

Results from PISA 2000–2006

• Lisa De Bortoli, Sue Thomson
• Australian Council for Educational Research

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Image: Rusty Stewart / Flickr

26 May 2010Indigenous students are performing well below the Australian average in international tests and student attitudes, behaviours and backgrounds could provide some of the keys to understanding this, according to this report.

The report is based on findings from all three completed cycles of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is managed nationally by ACER.

Indigenous students on average have reported lower levels of access to home educational resources, such as a desk, textbooks and a quiet place to study, and also generally have parents with lower levels of experience of education than non-Indigenous students.

This report focused on the psychological factors that can affect student achievement, and found that while Indigenous students on average have lower levels of confidence, less interest in learning, lower levels of motivation and engagement with reading and higher levels of anxiety about education than non-Indigenous students, they still put in as much effort and reported similar levels of persistence with learning, and felt similar levels of general engagement with school, as their non-Indigenous peers.
However, the report also found that Indigenous students are less likely to attend pre-school, and are more likely to be late to school on a regular basis, to miss consecutive months of schooling and to change school several times.

Some absences may be due to ceremony and Sorry business (Indigenous bereavement rituals); however, as PISA shows a link between consistent  school attendance and better student performance, ways must be found to minimise the disadvantages to Indigenous students through missing school.

These factors contribute to Indigenous students’ underperformance in international tests of educational achievement.

Image: 'Remote Education, Arnhem Land, Australia', Rusty Stewart / Flickr