NCEA subject choices in mid–low-decile schools

What schools and parents need to know about the university pathway

SEINI JENSEN, ELIZABETH MCKINLEY AND IRENA MADJAR

Introduction

Most parents of secondary school students want to support and advise their children in making good subject-choice decisions. A proliferation of course choices under the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), confusing terminology and unclear requirements for progression towards qualifications, make navigating NCEA difficult. Many parents find out too late that their child has the wrong combinations of subjects, standards or credits for entry to degree-level study.

A study undertaken by the Starpath Project at The University of Auckland found that Māori and Pacific students (clustered in low-decile schools) were taking, or being directed toward, educational pathways that do not always match their aspirations and potential for degree-level study (Madjar, McKinley, Jensen, & Van Der Merwe, 2009). Furthermore, few parents in the study understood how subject-choice decisions, in combination with schooling structures (such as timetabling, course design and allocation to particular versions of subjects) can have serious implications for their child’s future study opportunities.

This paper draws on data from interviews with parents, teachers and students regarding NCEA course choices. We focus on parental understandings and involvement in the NCEA course choices of their children, and on the aspirations they have for their children’s education. The findings provide insight into difficulties parents have when attempting to advise their children in their NCEA decisions. We argue that parents need information that shows the connections between NCEA courses and particular educational pathways, so they can support their children in making appropriate course choices. We conclude by suggesting that schools identify more clearly to parents and students the subjects (and standards) required to progress along the university pathway in their school.

NCEA course choices: Inequity and complexity in NCEA pathways

The NCEA system, introduced in 2002, was designed to provide flexible educational pathways and to support the learning of a diverse range of students. Under the NCEA, both vocational and academic courses contribute credits towards qualifications (NCEA Levels 1, 2 or 3), and schools are free to create new subjects and versions of subjects, through various combinations of achievement and/or unit standards (Alison, 2005). Schools have used this flexibility not only to expand the courses available in the senior secondary school (Pilcher, 2006), but also to be innovative in their course design; for example, creating courses with standards from more than one level (Hipkins, 2007).

Greater flexibility has created problems for negotiating the university pathway through secondary school. In particular, we have noted that able Māori and Pacific students and their parents struggle with the complexity that is a result of the more flexible system. Their confusion might contribute to the poorer levels of University Entrance (UE)¹ achievement amongst these groups. Ministry of Education statistics for 2008 show that only 20 percent of Māori and 23 percent of Pacific school leavers achieved UE, compared to 67 percent of Asian and 49 percent of European/Pākehā school leavers (Ministry of Education, 2009a). Disparities appear to exist across all schools, no matter what their decile (Yuan, Turner, & Irving, 2010).

To get on the pathway towards university, a student needs to take particular combinations of subjects and standards. For instance, standards from the approved subject list² are required to achieve UE, and research has shown that the likelihood of achieving UE increases with the number of approved subjects studied (Smith & Timperley, 2008). Māori and Pacific students, however, tend to take fewer subjects, and complete fewer credits from the approved subjects list, than other students (Smith & Timperley, 2008; Turner, 2007). Instead, Māori and Pacific students more often take “alternative” versions of core subjects and applied subjects, made up of mainly unit standards (Hipkins, Vaughan, Beals, Ferral, & Gardiner, 2005). This pattern of course taking makes it difficult to achieve UE and excludes these students from limited-entry programmes at university (Shulruf, Tolley, & Tumen, 2005).

Research on NCEA indicates that a significant number of students believe their parents do not understand the NCEA system (Meyer, McClure, Walkey, McKenzie, & Weir, 2006). The Competent Children, Competent Learners study (Wylie & Hipkins, 2006) indicated that particular groups of parents and students are more vulnerable than others—while overall 28 percent of parents and students reported they would have liked more guidance in choosing Year 9 and Year 10 optional subjects, this proportion was higher for Māori and Pacific students and lower for those who had university-educated mothers.

More recently, in their longitudinal research on NCEA and student motivation, Meyer, Weir, McClure, Walkey and McKenzie (2009) showed that Māori and Pacific parents reported high satisfaction with NCEA, but these parents also admitted they did not fully understand the NCEA system or the information provided to them on NCEA.

Increased and informed parental involvement in student decision making under NCEA could help raise student achievement, through better decisions about NCEA courses and pathways. The Ministry of Education’s Pasifika Education Plan 2009–2012 (Ministry of Education, 2009b) and Ka Hikitia—Managing for Success: The Māori Education Strategy 2008–2012 (Ministry of Education, 2009c) both prioritise effective parental or whānau engagement in their child’s education, because children’s achievement is strengthened by involving parents in their learning. Ka Hikitia specifically identifies improving the timing and quality of NCEA information and advice to parents and whānau (Ministry of Education, 2009c, p. 23).

The findings we report in this article are derived from the Towards University: Navigating NCEA Course Choices in Low-Mid Decile Schools (Madjar et al., 2009) study.

We interviewed 161 research participants for this study: 87 students, 42 parents and 32 teachers, from four low-or mid-decile schools in Auckland and Northland. The majority of parents in our study reported having at least a secondary school qualification, and just over a fifth (n = 9) of the parents indicated that they had completed a university-level qualification—five of these were Māori and four were European/Pākehā. In terms of occupation, about 39 percent of parents interviewed were employed in the trades or service jobs, followed by about 37 percent in professional or management occupations or who were self-employed. Twenty-four percent were full-time students and/or housewives, beneficiaries or retirees.

In the following section we summarise our findings on parent understandings and involvement in the NCEA course choices of their children, and on the aspirations they have for their children’s education.

Parental understanding of NCEA

The parents, students and teachers we interviewed were all asked to comment on parental understanding of NCEA. Most parents reported that they either “don’t understand” the system at all or, at best, understand only a “little bit”. Teachers and students confirmed that most parents had only a limited understanding of NCEA. Students reported trying to educate their parents about NCEA, and acknowledged that parents often asked them to explain their “grades” and what they meant in the context of progression towards achieving NCEA qualifications.

Importantly, parents told us that they do take time to try to understand NCEA and the various options it provides. However, parents repeatedly mentioned that they struggled to understand the system and decipher NCEA terminology, finding it “hard to get one’s head around”, “confusing” or “mind-boggling”. These difficulties impacted on their ability to comprehend their children’s record of achievement, course-selection information, school reports and/or conversations with teachers and their children.

Teachers were aware they could not take parents’ understanding for granted, particularly where school policies intersected with NCEA requirements. The topic of the “subject pass” (subject, standard and credit prerequisites) was often mentioned to us by teachers in this regard. The “subject pass” is not a formal NCEA requirement but based on individual school criteria that determine the number and mix of credits required for progression to a higher level of study in the same subject. One teacher gave a recent example of a parent and student who were unaware of this school requirement:

I think people have got so hung up on the total credits that they have forgotten about the subject pass as such … I had quite a flabbergasted … father and daughter that I had enrolled at the start of the year where I said ‘yeah she might have her 95 credits … but she wouldn’t be able to do this subject because she’s only got eight in that particular subject, so we wouldn’t consider that she could go on in that subject’, and they hadn’t even thought of that aspect of it. (Female teacher)

While schools do hold NCEA information events for parents, and the Ministry of Education targets community events with information on NCEA, parents told us that they need help to understand more than just the basic elements. Some parents admitted they felt intimidated by the prospect of a discussion they would not understand, so they might avoid NCEA information events. Parents did report, however, that they appreciated personal, informal discussions with teachers where they felt comfortable to ask specific questions relevant to their child’s situation.

Our findings indicate seven areas of difficulty experienced by parents, identified by students, parents and teachers. Parents tended to lack understanding about these critical matters:

• their children’s NCEA results (including common abbreviations, how many credits were needed to “complete” a subject and the significance of external versus internal assessment)

• the difference between alternate versions of subjects and the significance of their children being allocated to one of these

• the difference between unit and achievement standards, their link to different versions of subjects and their relevance to advanced study

• the importance of individual school policies and their interaction with NCEA requirements (for example, subject prerequisites or the “subject pass”; policies on when and how often students are permitted to be reassessed on previously filed assessments)

• the standards required to achieve NCEA Levels 1, 2 and 3 qualifications

• the subjects and standards required to achieve UE

• the difference between UE and more specific requirements set down by individual universities and particular tertiary programmes.

Lack of understanding of these crucial points means that parents cannot identify the subjects, standards, credits and level of achievement their child needs to progress along their chosen educational pathway. This limits parents’ ability to support and advise their children in making the right course choices and in monitoring their children’s progress towards achieving their aspirations.

Aspirations for university study

NCEA course choices matter, especially where students or their parents have aspirations to follow a particular educational pathway beyond school or even just to leave their academic options open. In our study, even though we recruited students of different ethnicity and academic ability, 78 percent of students indicated they planned to complete UE. As well, most parents, in particular Māori and Pacific parents, voiced strong aspirations for their children’s achievement, and the hope that their lives would be easier and more prosperous as a result:

I say to him ‘that’s the benefit of going to uni[versity], getting yourself a degree and all that … If you have that in the back pocket, you’ll be fine. You can do anything, you can go anywhere.’ (Overseas-born Cook Island Māori mother of Year 13 student)

Despite high aspirations, some parents felt unable to actively help their child make subject choices. Because of their lack of knowledge of the NCEA requirements and the university pathway, they were reluctant to influence their children’s subject choices, and simply hoped their children made the right decisions on their own, or in consultation with teachers:

She [daughter] chose them [subjects] and did that at school, and then when she told me what she was doing I didn’t think it was a good idea if she wanted to be a lawyer. So I made her go back and re-discuss it … She did get some changes, so … I was … a little bit more happy with that. Because I didn’t think that some of the subjects she took would allow her to get enough credits … I’m hoping that having gone back and re-discussed it, that those people in that role have enough understanding to help her make better choices … A lot of faith’s been put on the school’s advice. (New Zealand-born Māori mother of Year 11 student)

A small group of parents in our study, mainly European/Pākehā mothers, were able to intervene, monitor and support their children in realising their educational goals. Despite a limited understanding of the NCEA system, these parents had personal and professional resources that enabled them to intervene early, directly and successfully for their child, to ensure he or she stayed on track. These parents had better informed networks where they could gather information about school policies and practices, and sometimes they could employ private tutors to raise their child’s achievement, allowing access to the “top” classes.

This contrasted with the way many, particularly Māori and Pacific, parents were involved in supporting their child’s education. Pacific parents tended to find it difficult to offer specific academic support and advice, but would encourage their children in ways they knew: restricting television watching and social activities, and ensuring their children attended school and completed their homework. When they knew their child was struggling in a particular subject, they were not in a position to provide help themselves, or to pay for such help, and had to rely on extended family networks for assistance or on the school-run after-school homework centres.

Māori and Pacific parents shared with their children their personal life stories of regret, struggle and limited opportunities in order to motivate and encourage their children to “work hard” and “stay at school”. Some parents told stories of struggles with limited employment prospects to urge their children to take what they saw as the better path, through higher education:

I didn’t want my daughters to have to struggle the same way I have … So education to me and the father of the children is very, very important, because we realise how important education is in today’s society as well as for the future. In our time, a … diploma was important. Nowadays it’s a degree … or more these days, which determines how much your income is … So we were looking at the future as far as our children were concerned, and, yes, it is very vital, and, being a Māori, it is even more important. (New Zealand-born Māori mother of Year 12 student)

The use of personal stories to motivate their children in education is characteristic of under-educated or immigrant parents (Yonezawa & Oakes, 1999). However, warning stories, the valuing of schooling, high aspirations and other strategies, such as monitoring television watching, are often not enough to translate into better educational outcomes for their children. The educational pathway to reaching that aspiration, in New Zealand, requires a careful and planned navigation of NCEA courses.

The university pathway through secondary school

If parents and students are to become enabled to match their university aspirations with the most appropriate course choices, they must understand which subjects, and types of standards, will lead them along the university pathway. The following section illustrates some of the difficulties parents face in understanding the course choices which will take their children towards UE and university study.

Many parents in our study said they are supportive of their children’s career plans, but become confused when the course choices do not “work out” even though the child appears to be on the right subject track. Parents are not aware that schools construct different versions of subjects and then allocate students to the different versions. So while parents may be pleased that their child is “taking maths”, their child might in fact be allocated to an “applied” version of mathematics based solely on unit standards at Level 1 or Level 2, which will not qualify them for more advanced mathematics study later on—for example, Level 3 physics or mathematics with calculus. In order to support and correctly advise their children, parents need to know that allocation to unit standards versions of core subjects can prevent advanced study in the same or related subjects and therefore impact on their pathway to UE and university study. Achievement standards, on the other hand, provide not only the more appropriate content but also the opportunity to gain the higher levels of achievement (merit or excellence grades) necessary for university entrance.

Some parents who seek to clarify subject choices with teachers have difficulty interpreting the advice and information provided by schools. The father quoted below was supportive of his daughter’s career aspirations, yet left a conversation with a teacher without an adequate explanation and without an improved ability to support his daughter in making sure she is on the right pathway:

She told me she want to be a teacher … It’s very hard for me because, like I said, I didn’t finish school … Last year we went to the school and … got her report and she told me that she select her subject for this year for the NCEA … She came over here and I saw the subjects including … social studies and accounting. And she didn’t do … the computer, but she was the top in computer last year. Then we came over and asked the teacher: ‘Why? I don’t understand how they separate them into a group like 101, 102, I don’t understand that.’ And the teacher said, ‘That’s why, because if she take computer she can’t take the history or social studies or whatever. She had to take another choice.’ I told him: ‘Why?’ I just ask because I don’t know why she was the top in the computer last year and this year … they didn’t give her a chance to continue on and … they said, ‘Okay, she going to take that’ and she left accounting … I said, ‘I like the accounting, can’t she take accounting and computer?’ Then teacher said, ‘No, if she take computers she has to left accounting, take the computer and history.’ (Overseas-born Tongan father of Year 11 student)

This father wanted to know why his daughter should not choose computers, a subject in which she did well and which he thought would be good for university and her aspiration to be a teacher. He needed to know that “computers” was an inappropriate subject for his daughter because taking it could jeopardise her chances of gaining exposure to the standards, content and advanced study necessary to achieve UE. He also needed to be shown which subjects were the right choices and would enhance his daughter’s chances of achieving UE and successfully entering into her degree of choice at university.

The above example highlights how the information and advice provided by schools (and, in fact, by NZQA, see below) can confuse rather than clarify subject-choice decisions. Some of these difficulties might relate to the way individual schools construct their courses and the accuracy and clarity of the schools’ course-selection information. In the daughter’s course-selection booklet is a table titled “Approved Subject List for University Entrance”, and computing is listed in this table (the list is a copy from the original source published on the NZQA website). From this information it would be reasonable for the father and his daughter to interpret “computers” as being a good choice, because it appears to be an approved subject for UE. Their assumption is mistaken, because subjects listed as approved subjects can contain standards that do not satisfy UE criteria. Only certain standards provide the credits needed for UE.

At the daughter’s school the subject computing was comprised mostly of standards that were not on the approved list, and at Level 3 included only two approved standards (worth a total of 8 credits). If the daughter relies on computing to gain 14 credits, she will fail to achieve UE even if she achieves all 21 credits offered in the course. Parents also need to know that taking this subject at Level 1 might be inappropriate because it will not lead towards a subject at Level 3 that allows the opportunity to take the approved standards needed to gain appropriate credits for UE.

Although schools decide which standards are offered under each subject, schools do not always clearly label those standards (and/or subjects) as approved or not approved for UE. It would assist parents, such as the father quoted earlier, if, when school information labels a subject as approved, all the standards offered under that subject are approved standards for UE. If a subject contains standards that are not approved, schools should consider red-flagging this subject as inappropriate for the university pathway.

Clarifying the university pathway in your school

Because schools construct subjects (from different combinations of achievement and/or unit standards, which are either approved or not approved standards for UE), they are in the best position to inform parents and students about their system’s complexities and opportunities. Clarifying the university pathway would involve individual schools more effectively communicating to parents which subjects (and standards) are needed for successful progress towards UE at that school. Schools may need to review individual standards comprising each subject, to ensure subjects can be correctly identified as containing sufficient approved standards, or not, for academic progress. Schools may also need to identify which subjects at Levels 1 and 2 give students the opportunity to progress into approved standards at Level 3.

The qualitative research in the Towards University study (Madjar et al., 2009), as well as the studies discussed above (Hipkins et al., 2005; Shulruf et al., 2005; Smith & Timperley, 2008; Turner, 2007; Yuan et al., 2010), indicate that Pacific and Māori students often make course choices that take them away from rather than towards the university pathway. Having schools identify more clearly to parents (and students) the subjects and standards that form the university pathway is the first step towards making this pathway more equitably available to all students.

In addition, schools need to consider how they communicate, support and monitor students to “stay on track” or “step up” to a university pathway. This is a positive opportunity to more effectively engage students and parents in the academic targets required to progress towards UE and university study. As part of this process, schools could also consider developing academic support structures and academic counselling to systematically communicate, support and monitor academic targets for students to ensure they progress along their chosen educational pathway.

Schools play a critical role in structuring educational opportunities for their students, and these opportunities need to be clearly signposted to students, parents and teachers. Our study suggests that if schools are able to better inform and more effectively engage parents in their children’s NCEA educational pathways, this may be a first step to better educational outcomes for these young people.

References

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Hipkins, R., Vaughan, K., Beals, F., Ferral, H., & Gardiner, B. (2005). Shaping our futures: Meeting secondary students’ learning needs in a time of evolving qualifications. Final report of the Learning Curves project. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.

Madjar, I., McKinley, E., Jensen, S., & Van Der Merwe, A. (2009). Towards university: Navigating NCEA course choices in low-mid decile schools. Auckland: Starpath Project, The University of Auckland.

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Notes

1 UE is the common educational standard established by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) as a prerequisite for entrance to university for people under 20. To achieve UE, a student studying NCEA must obtain Level 1 numeracy (14 numeracy credits at Level 1 or higher in mathematics or pāngarau on the National Qualifications Framework) plus Level 2 literacy (8 literacy credits [from a schedule of standards approved to fulfil the literacy requirement for university entrance] or higher in English or te reo Māori; 4 credits in reading/pānui and 4 in writing/tuhituhi) plus, at Level 3, 14 credits in each of two subjects from the approved subjects list plus a further 14 credits from one or two additional domains or approved subjects.

2 The current approved subject list can be found at http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/for-students/ue/ue-approved-subjects.html