Pass Rates in the First Year of University Study: The Effect of Gender and Faculty

In recent years, the Faculty of Commerce and Administration at Victoria University of Wellington has grown at a faster rate than the rest of the University. The increase in the number of female students has been even more pronounced. The study sought to determine the degree to which pass rates in first year of full‐time studies differed between the sexes and between the Commerce faculty and the rest of the University. Students were grouped into three categories of prior academic ability. The results showed that females with the two lower levels of prior academic ability in the rest of the University achieved significantly higher pass rates than their peers.     

Neuroimaging Studies of Reading Development and Reading Disability

Converging evidence from a number of neuroimaging studies, including our own, suggest that fluent word identification in reading is related to the functional integrity of two left hemisphere posterior systems: a temporo-parietal system and a ventral occipito-temporal system. These posterior systems are functionally disrupted in developmental dyslexia. Reading disabled, relative to nonimpaired, readers demonstrate heightened reliance on both inferior frontal and right hemisphere posterior regions, presumably in compensation for the LH posterior difficulties. We propose a neurobiological account suggesting that for normally developing readers the temporo-parietal system predominates at first, and is associated with aspects of processing critical in learning to integrate orthography with phonological and lexical-semantic features of printed words. The occipito-temporal system, by contrast, constitutes a fast, late-developing, word-identification system that underlies fluent word recognition in skilled readers.