Personal Health...

The focus of this chapter is on personal health and physical development, and includes understandings about personal identity and self-worth. Students are expected to be developing their abilities to meet their health and physical activity needs, and learning about influences on their well-being.

The results for sixteen tasks are reported here. Seven of these were identical for both year 4 and year 8. Three further tasks had overlapping components for year 4 and year 8 students, with additional components for year 8 students. One task was administered only to year 4 students, and five tasks were administered only to year 8 students.

Ten tasks were administered in one-to-one interview sessions, three in team sessions, and three in stations sessions.

Food PyramidSix of the tasks have been selected as link tasks (to be used again in the year 2002) and therefore are not described in detail here. Two of these were attempted by both year 4 and year 8 students, and a third had common components for year 4 and year 8 students. One was given only to year 4 students, and two only to year 8 students. The other ten tasks are released tasks for which full details are given.

The tasks are presented in the following order:

• seven released tasks for both year 4 and year 8 students;
• three released tasks for year 8 students;
• three link tasks for both year 4 and year 8 students;
• a link task for year 4 students; two link tasks for year 8 students.

Although ten tasks were identical or had overlapping components for year 4 and year 8 students, only seven of these were marked evaluatively. The other three were marked entirely descriptively. The students showed substantial knowledge of the human body and of physical aspects of health such as nutrition, but tended not to extend their concepts of health to the social, emotional, intellectual and spiritual aspects which are also important.

Considering only the seven tasks which allowed a fair comparison between the performance of year 4 and year 8 students, on average 22 percent more year 8 students than year 4 students gained high scores. The margin of superiority ranged from 14 percent of students on one of these tasks to 30 percent of students on another.

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