BARRHEAD/WESTLOCK - Two years of disruptions due to the COVID pandemic resulted in Grade 6 and 9 students in the Pembina Hills School Division achieving poorer results in the Provincial Achievement Tests (PATs) for nearly all of the core subjects, with Social Studies 6, Math 9 and Social Studies 9 being particular areas of concern.
That was the takeaway from the 2021-2022 PAT Results summary, which director of education services Raime Drake presented to Pembina Hills trustees at their Dec. 14 meeting.
Drake said that in a typical year, Grade 6 and 9 students write PATs in the core subjects of English Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies, with French Immersion students writing tests in French. They are just one of the measures utilized by the division to assess student progress and identify areas of concern.
“They’re just one piece of our puzzle, but it does give us some more data to get curious about and look at the achievement of our students,” Drake said.
Pembina Hills’ results have always been influenced by the fact that they must include the results of Vista Virtual School. For a variety of reasons, such as the location of students enrolled in the distance learning program in relation to testing centres, the participation rates of Vista Virtual School have always been lower than community schools.
This is partly why the results are split into two categories: “cohort” results, which include the results of students who did not write the tests and are thus marked as zero; and “writer” results, which measure the outcomes of only those students who completed the tests.
Drake also noted 2021-2022 marked the first time in two years that students actually wrote the PATs, as they were put on hold due to COVID.
Even with in-person classes resuming, Drake noted participation rates were “a lot lower than typical” as many students were ill. There was also anecdotal evidence that at least some students were exempted from writing by family physicians over mental health concerns.
In any case, Drake said the real work and analysis of the PAT results will be done by individual schools, and this was only a “high-level” synopsis.
Delving into the results
Drake noted prior to parsing through the results that an acceptable standard generally refers to students achieving 50 per cent or higher on the tests, while a “standard of excellence” is usually more than 80 per cent.
In English Language Arts 6, a total of 87.3 per cent of Pembina Hills “writers” achieved an acceptable standard, compared to 89.8 per cent throughout the province in 2022.
In 2019, 93.4 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved an acceptable standard, but in 2022, a much higher number of students – 17.7 per cent of writers – achieved the standard of excellence, compared to 6.1 in 2019.
Mathematics 6 showed similar trends, with only 71.4 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieving an acceptable standard compared to 79.3 per cent in 2019. Conversely, 75 per cent of provincial writers achieved an acceptable standard
However, the number of Pembina Hills writers achieving a standard of excellence was higher – 12.6 per cent in 2022 versus 9.5 per cent in 2019.
The differences between the two years was smaller with Science 6, with 82.8 per cent of writers achieving an acceptable standard in 2019 and 80 per cent reaching that standard in 2022. Provincially, 83.4 per cent of writers achieved an acceptable standard.
Meanwhile, 25.4 per cent of Pembina Hills students in 2019 and 25.8 per cent of students in 2022 achieved a standard of excellence.
In Social Studies 6, Pembina Hills students fell behind the provincial results as well as their 2019 scores. A total of 71.2 per cent of Pembina Hills writers reached the acceptable standard in 2022, while throughout Alberta, 79.3 per cent of writers achieved an acceptable standard.
However, a higher number of Pembina Hills writers achieved a standard of excellence – 26.8 per cent in the division versus 20.7 in the province. Local students also outperformed their 2019 scores in this category.
In Grade 9 English Language Arts, while the cohort results indicated a lack of participation, 84 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved an acceptable standard in 2022 compared to 85.4 per cent in the province. These results were also comparable to the 2019 scores.
Local writers of the Knowledge and Employability (K&E) English Language Arts 9 test slightly outperformed the province, with 69.6 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieving an acceptable standard versus 67 per cent throughout Alberta. Likewise, 13 per cent achieved a standard of excellence versus 6.6 per cent throughout the province.
However, it should be noted that the 2019 writer results for Pembina Hills were much better, with 90 per cent of students achieving an acceptable standard in K&E ELA and 20 per cent reaching a standard of excellence.
Moving over to Mathematics 9, only 53 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved an acceptable standard in 2022 versus 63.7 per cent throughout the province.
In both cases, there was a significant drop in achievement from 2019, as 72.9 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved an acceptable standard that year, as did 67.4 per cent of provincial writers.
Likewise, 19.2 per cent of Pembina Hills writers reached a standard of excellence in 2019 versus 12.5 per cent in 2022.
That was not the case with K&E Mathematics 9, as 81.5 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved an acceptable standard in 2022 versus 67.8 per cent throughout the province. However, the number of students reaching a standard of excellence compared to 2019 was much lower.
Local students did well in Science 9, even though the cohort results generally demonstrated a decrease in participation. A total of 82.4 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved an acceptable standard in 2022 versus 82.1 per cent throughout the province, and their 2019 results were also comparable.
Likewise, the results for K&E Science 9 were positive, with 92.3 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieving an acceptable standard versus 72.6 per cent throughout the province.
However, Social Studies 9 marked a major area of concern, as only 60.3 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved an acceptable standard in 2022 versus 72.8 per cent throughout the province.
The 2019 results were also significantly better, as 73.6 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved an acceptable standard three years ago versus 77 per cent throughout the province.’
As well, 12.3 per cent of SS 9 writers reached a standard of excellence in 2019 versus 6.9 per cent in 2022.
Thankfully, the same could not be said about the K&E Social Studies 9 results. Even though only 68.7 of 2022 writers in Pembina Hills achieved an acceptable standard, they still outperformed the province, which had 65.9 per cent of writers achieving an acceptable standard.
In 2019, a total of 90.9 per cent of Pembina Hills writers achieved the acceptable standard in K&E SS 9 versus only 64.7 per cent of writers throughout Alberta.
