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Relative Age Effects and Gender Differences in the National Test of Numeracy: A Population Study of Norwegian Children

Relative age effect (RAE) refers to the phenomenon by which children born early in their year of birth perform more highly than children born later in the same cohort. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether an RAE exists in the Norwegian numeracy test for 5th, 8th, and 9th graders (Nation...

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Autores principales: Aune, Tore K., Ingvaldsen, Rolf P., Vestheim, Ole P., Bjerkeset, Ottar, Dalen, Terje
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6036144/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30013499
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01091
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author Aune, Tore K.
Ingvaldsen, Rolf P.
Vestheim, Ole P.
Bjerkeset, Ottar
Dalen, Terje
author_facet Aune, Tore K.
Ingvaldsen, Rolf P.
Vestheim, Ole P.
Bjerkeset, Ottar
Dalen, Terje
author_sort Aune, Tore K.
collection PubMed
description Relative age effect (RAE) refers to the phenomenon by which children born early in their year of birth perform more highly than children born later in the same cohort. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether an RAE exists in the Norwegian numeracy test for 5th, 8th, and 9th graders (National sample of 175,760). The results showed that the RAE is consistent across 5th, 8th, and 9th graders for both boys and girls. Mean scores decreased systematically with month of birth for both genders, and the mean scores for boys were higher compared with girls. The most interesting result and novelty is the gender difference in RAE observed analyzing high- vs. low scorers. Boys born early in the year were overrepresented as high scorers (RAE advantage), whereas girls born late in the year were overrepresented as low scorers (RAE disadvantage). It would be beneficial for researchers, teachers and education policymakers to be aware of RAE, both in terms of the practical use and implications of test results and to help identify strategies to adjust for relative age differences in national tests.
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spelling pubmed-60361442018-07-16 Relative Age Effects and Gender Differences in the National Test of Numeracy: A Population Study of Norwegian Children Aune, Tore K. Ingvaldsen, Rolf P. Vestheim, Ole P. Bjerkeset, Ottar Dalen, Terje Front Psychol Psychology Relative age effect (RAE) refers to the phenomenon by which children born early in their year of birth perform more highly than children born later in the same cohort. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether an RAE exists in the Norwegian numeracy test for 5th, 8th, and 9th graders (National sample of 175,760). The results showed that the RAE is consistent across 5th, 8th, and 9th graders for both boys and girls. Mean scores decreased systematically with month of birth for both genders, and the mean scores for boys were higher compared with girls. The most interesting result and novelty is the gender difference in RAE observed analyzing high- vs. low scorers. Boys born early in the year were overrepresented as high scorers (RAE advantage), whereas girls born late in the year were overrepresented as low scorers (RAE disadvantage). It would be beneficial for researchers, teachers and education policymakers to be aware of RAE, both in terms of the practical use and implications of test results and to help identify strategies to adjust for relative age differences in national tests. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-07-02 /pmc/articles/PMC6036144/ /pubmed/30013499 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01091 Text en Copyright © 2018 Aune, Ingvaldsen, Vestheim, Bjerkeset and Dalen. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Aune, Tore K.
Ingvaldsen, Rolf P.
Vestheim, Ole P.
Bjerkeset, Ottar
Dalen, Terje
Relative Age Effects and Gender Differences in the National Test of Numeracy: A Population Study of Norwegian Children
title Relative Age Effects and Gender Differences in the National Test of Numeracy: A Population Study of Norwegian Children
title_full Relative Age Effects and Gender Differences in the National Test of Numeracy: A Population Study of Norwegian Children
title_fullStr Relative Age Effects and Gender Differences in the National Test of Numeracy: A Population Study of Norwegian Children
title_full_unstemmed Relative Age Effects and Gender Differences in the National Test of Numeracy: A Population Study of Norwegian Children
title_short Relative Age Effects and Gender Differences in the National Test of Numeracy: A Population Study of Norwegian Children
title_sort relative age effects and gender differences in the national test of numeracy: a population study of norwegian children
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6036144/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30013499
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01091
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