Children's Understanding and Cultural Factors in Reading Test Performance

Abstract

An investigation was carried out into the relationship between children's performance on a multiple‐choice sentence‐completion reading test and their understanding of the test items. Three groups of 24 primary school pupils (aged 7:10 to 8:11) from working‐class homes, middle‐class homes, and from homes where English was a second language were studied. Their understanding of test items, determined by administering the reading test orally, was found to vary considerably according to cultural background, and to be partly responsible for social class differences in test performance. An examination of the test items suggested some reasons why this might be so. Implications for educational practice and research are identified.