In Canada overall, students in English-language schools achieved higher scores than those in French-language schools in reading (Figure 1.5). This result is consistent with the result reported for Canadian Grade 4 students in PIRLS 2011 (Labrecque et al., 2012). However, this finding differs from the results reported for Canadian 15-year-olds in the 2015 PISA study, in which there was no significant difference between the two language systems in reading (O’Grady et al., 2016).
24 PCAP 2016
Figure 1.5 Canadian results in reading by language of the school system
500 509
400 420 440 460 480 500 520 540 560 580 600
French English
Mean score
Table 1.10 presents a comparison of provincial results with the Canadian means for both English- and French-language school systems. In English-language systems, the achievement of students in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island is the same as the Canadian English mean; all other provinces scored below the Canadian English mean. In French-language schools in Quebec, students achieve the same as the Canadian French mean. For all other provinces, the results are significantly below the Canadian French mean (Appendix B.5).
Table 1.10 Comparison of Canadian and provincial results for reading by language of the school system
Anglophone school system
Above* the Canadian English mean At the Canadian English mean Below* the Canadian English mean British Columbia, Alberta,
Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador Francophone school system
Above* the Canadian French mean At the Canadian French mean Below* the Canadian French mean
Quebec British Columbia, Alberta,
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia
* Denotes significant difference
The data reveal statistically different performance between anglophone and francophone school systems within each province in reading overall: students in the English-language system performed better than their counterparts in the French-language system (Table 1.11). In light of these findings, it would be prudent for policy-makers to further investigate the provincial results, given that differences between the majority- and the minority-language school systems were as much as 61 points on the overall reading scale (Appendix B.5).
Table 1.11 Summary of provincial results in reading by language of the school system
Anglophone schools performed significantly better
than francophone schools Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia
Differences between anglophone and francophone school systems are also evident in the reading subdomains. At the Canadian level, students in anglophone schools performed better than their counterparts in francophone schools in the interpreting texts subdomain. The opposite pattern occurred for the responding personally to texts subdomain, with higher achievement in francophone schools for Canada overall (Table 1.12). At the provincial level, higher achievement compared to the Canadian mean was found in the English-language systems in Alberta for understanding texts and in Ontario for interpreting texts and responding critically to texts. British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island were the only provinces in which student achievement was at or above the Canadian means in all four subdomains. In the francophone school system, students in Alberta and Ontario attained scores at the Canadian mean for the responding personally to texts and the responding critically to texts subdomains, and Quebec students attained scores similar to the Canadian means in the four reading subdomains (Table 1.13, Appendix B.8).
Table 1.12 Canadian results in reading subdomains by language of the school system
Reading subdomain
Anglophone school system Francophone school system
Difference (English–French) Mean score Confidence
interval (±) Mean
score Confidence interval (±)
Understanding texts 501 2.1 497 4.5 4
Interpreting texts 506 2.3 480 3.7 26*
Responding
personally to texts 498 2.6 506 4.2 -8*
Responding critically
to texts 501 2.6 497 3.9 4
* Denotes significant difference
26 PCAP 2016
Table 1.13 Comparison of Canadian and provincial results in reading subdomains by language of the school system
Anglophone school system
Above* the Canadian English mean At the Canadian English mean Below* the Canadian English mean Understanding texts
Alberta British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador
Interpreting texts
Ontario British Columbia,
Alberta, Quebec, Prince Edward Island
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador Responding critically to texts
Ontario British Columbia, Alberta,
Quebec, Prince Edward Island Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador Francophone school system
Above* the Canadian French mean At the Canadian French mean Below* the Canadian French mean Understanding texts
Quebec British Columbia, Alberta,
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia Interpreting texts
Quebec British Columbia, Alberta,
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia Responding personally to texts
Alberta, Ontario,
Quebec British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia Responding critically to texts
Alberta, Ontario,
Quebec British Columbia,
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia
* Denotes significant difference
Within provinces, anglophone students in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia achieved higher scores than their francophone peers in all four reading subdomains in PCAP 2016 (Table 1.14). The results were quite variable between subdomains for the other provinces (Appendix B.8).
Table 1.14 Summary of differences in provincial results in reading subdomains by language of the school system
Anglophone schools performed significantly better
than francophone schools
Francophone schools performed significantly better
than anglophone schools
No significant difference between school systems
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia British Columbia,
Alberta, Ontario, Quebec Responding critically to texts
British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia
Alberta, Quebec