Málfríður - 15.10.2008, Blaðsíða 20

20 MÁLFRÍÐUR
in  English  than  in  Icelandic.  This  is  not  a  feature 
of reading in a foreign language that  is mentioned 
in the literature and would appear to be unique to 
Icelandic teenagers. It points to a significant number 
of Icelandic teenagers at both ends of the spectrum 
of ability having a better reading ability in English 
than  in  Icelandic,  albeit  that  they  may  lack  the 
advanced language skills and vocabulary needed to 
comprehend challenging texts. 
Comparing students’ scores across the two levels 
of ability, students performing at the higher level in 
PISA 2006 in Icelandic performed significantly bet-
ter  (p  <  .05)  than  PISA  lower  level  students  when 
tested in English, both over the test as a whole and 
on the questions answered only.
Moving  on  from  students’  actual  scores  on  the 
test,  it  is  interesting  to  consider  the  number  of 
questions students omitted from the total of 28 (see 
Figure  4). Stronger  readers  in  Icelandic  omitted 
significantly  more  questions  in  the  English  test  (p 
<  .05)  and  there  was  a  strong  correlation  between 
omitting questions in the two languages. 
On the other hand, for weaker readers in Icelandic 
the  difference  between  the  number  of  questions 
they  omitted  in  the  Icelandic  test  and  the  English 
test was not significant (p = .172 (2-tailed)). 
I also looked at how well students performed on 
different types of questions. For questions involving 
“Forming a broad understanding” (e.g. What is the
main purpose of this material?) more skilled readers in 
Icelandic  performed  much  better  in  Icelandic  than 
in  English,  which  suggests  that  students  have  the 
reading  skills  in  their  first  language  to  cope  with 
these questions, but lack linguistic skills and vocab-
ulary to be able to answer them correctly in English. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  was  no  significant  dif-
ference  between  the  performance  in  Icelandic  and 
English on this type of question of weaker readers 
in  Icelandic.  The  wide  range  of  variance  suggests 
a greater breadth of ability at  the  lower  level  than 
among the more able readers. 
Similarly, stronger readers in Icelandic performed 
just  significantly  better  in  Icelandic  on  questions 
concerning  “Reflecting  on  content”  (e.g.  Why do
you think…? Explain your answer.)  than  in  English. 
Among  poorer  readers  in  Icelandic  no  significant 
difference  was  observed  for  performance  on  this 
type of question in English.
As  would  be  expected,  comparison  of  the  per-
formance of the more and less competent Icelandic 
readers  in  English  shows  that  stronger  readers  in 
Icelandic  scored  significantly  higher  than  weaker 
readers on all five types of questions when tested in 
English, as Figure 5 shows.
I  interpreted  the  main  factor  extracted  from  the 
questionnaire as students’ estimation of  their  tech-
nical difficulties in reading English. Figure 6 shows 
the  correlation  between  test  scores  and  students’ 
self-assessment of their lack of technical difficulties. 
Correlation for the group as a whole was r = .510, p 
(2-tailed) < .001.
A fair number of students (7 students at the high-
er PISA reading level in Icelandic and 15 students at 
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Anzeige-A4-Schritte-int.indd 1 22.10.2008 17:09:57 Uhr
Scores over the whole test
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Icelandic
E
n
gl
is
h
57 weaker and stronger readers in Icelandic
Questions omitted
0.7
3.3
5.2
7.6
0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
6.0
7.0
8.0
9.0
10.0
Stronger readers in Icelandic Weaker readers in Icelandic
Sc
or
e
Icelandic English
Reading in Icelandic or English
Figure 3. Student scores over the whole test
Figure 4. Questions omitted
Scores by type of question
7.37
6.83
7.87
5.7
7.99
5.54
4.76
5.29
3.18
4.89
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Question type.
1: Forming a broad understanding. 2: Retrieving information. 3: Reecting on content.
4: Reecting on form. 5: Developing an interpretation.
E
n
gl
is
h
sc
or
e
Stronger readers in Icelandic Weaker readers in Icelandic
Figure 5. Scores by type of question