Discrepancy between scaling of Arabic and other languages (1 Viewer)

[bonfire]

I was perusing hscscalinggraphs.au. Why is it that that Arabic Continuers and Extension courses consistently scale demonstrably less favourably than their counterparts of other languages? For example, below is the comparison between French and German courses against the Arabic.

The band descriptors and exams seem comparable in difficulty. How does UAC determine this difference?

 

[bonfire]

Ah okay. I should have done a bit of research:
'The ATAR scaling system is leading to lower scores for some high-level language subjects and has contributed to the decline of HSC languages more often studied by students in low socio-economic schools, new research shows.'

'Languages were assessed separately to other subjects until 2000, and scaled against the two largest languages at the time, French and German.

However, since then languages have been scaled in the same way as most HSC subjects, based on how the course cohort performed across all their other HSC subjects.

The head of the Technical Committee on Scaling (TCOS), which calculates ATARs, Rod Yager, said that the previous system of assessing languages separately was removed because it "disadvantaged any language whose candidature was academically stronger than French and German, and advantaged any language whose candidature was weaker".'

'Dr Cruickshank said that HSC syllabuses and exams for different languages required the same level of proficiency to reach each band, and language students should no longer be penalised for their performance in other subjects.'

Singhal, Pallavi. ‘ATAR Scaling Wiping out HSC Languages, Study Finds’. The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 Apr. 2018.

 

[bonfire]

I would be interested to see the paper (if one was published). Here is an article from the university department itself about the study: sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2018/04/23/atars-to-blame-for-fall-in-language-study.html

 

[jimmysmith560]

However, since then languages have been scaled in the same way as most HSC subjects, based on how the course cohort performed across all their other HSC subjects.

This is essentially the answer. Since a significant number of Arabic Continuers and Arabic Extension attend low socio-economic schools, it can be inferred that they will likely not be as academically capable across their subjects as students who attend better schools, leading to the lower scaling of both subjects compared to higher scaling language subjects, notably French Extension and Latin Extension.

With that being said, this is separate from performance in Arabic Continuers and Arabic Extension, that is, you will find that while a number of students may not perform favourably in their other subjects, they may still achieve favourable results in Arabic Continuers and/or Arabic Extension. This is especially the case for students who recently came to Australia from an Arabic-speaking country at an older age (and can also include Australian-born students who learned the language from their parents and/or through language classes), where high school Arabic curriculums naturally extend beyond Arabic Extension to a large extent. Of course, the same notion applies to any language, i.e. first-language courses will be inherently more difficult than second-language courses. For example, the level of French Extension is comparable with the 5e (year 7) curriculum taught in French-speaking countries. Similarly, the level of English taught as a second language in a non-English speaking country will be below that of a subject such as English Advanced.