The number of stimulus photographs differed from Year 4 to Year 8, although the assessment procedures, interview questions and marking scheme were the same.

The teacher administrator assembled the set of photographs in numeric order beginning at 1 to standardise the ÒjumblingÓ of the pictures. The students were able to review and alter their selections and arrangements of the pictures at any stage during the task, but the teacher was not to prompt such actions.

The teacher administrator gave the following instructions:

This activity is about print making processes used by some artists. I am going to give you a set of photographs which show children making art prints. The photos show different ways or processes for making prints. They show how the children started off, how they made their print, and how they finished off.

You will see that the photographs are all mixed up, so the first thing for your group to do is to sort them into the different ways that the children made their pictures.

I want you to sort these photographs into sets of pictures.Each set should show the same print-making process.

When you have done that, I will tell you what to do next.

This is number 1 on your Activity Card.

If the group does not come up with 4 sets of pictures, tell them that there are 4 different sets and that they should go back and try to find pictures belonging to the 4 different sets.

Now that you have put the photographs into 4 sets, I would like you to try to arrange each set of pictures into a line. Each line of pictures should be put into the order which shows how the print was made - from the first thing that was done through to the last thing.

Each person in the group is to do one set of pictures each.

When each of you have put your pictures in order, everyone in the group should check the order.

Do that, then I will tell you what to do next.

This is number 2 then number 3 on your Activity Card.

Time allowed for students to arrange pictures in sequence, and cross check within the group.

Now I want each person to explain to the others in the group what is happening in the set of pictures, so that you are describing how the print was made.

This is number 4 on your Activity Card.

At the conclusion, on the teacher record sheet write the order in which the photographs were arranged.

Year 8
94% of year 8 teams placed the 29 photographs into the sets with at most 1 or 2 photographs incorrectly placed. For these teams the percentage of photographs which has been ordered correctly within the sets was calculated. This percentage ranged from 29 to 55% with a mean of 45%. Correct placement required quite fine discriminations among steps in the four print making processes, and the relatively low level of success suggests that the students may not have had experience with all four print making processes.