The effects of translation on test scores by English-Language and French-Language students

The Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) is an independent agency of the Ontario government which administers achievement tests annually to all publicly funded schools in Ontario. The results of the 2006-2007 EQAO grade 3 mathematics tests was used to determine whether students in French-Language (FL) school boards performed as well as students in English-Language (EL) school boards. A two sample t test was used to evaluate the first hypothesis that students who took the test in English would perform better than students who completed the test in French. A 1 degree of freedom Chi-square test of independence was used to evaluate the second hypothesis, (gender differences between EL and FL school boards). The results corroborate those of previous research.