: Introduction
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Visual messages are prominent in today’s world. Some, like advertisements, are intended to persuade. Some are designed to entertain, or to trigger emotional responses. Many messages designed to communicate information rely heavily on visual information to complement text components. Visual messages are also an

important part of interpersonal communication, through the non-verbal signals in facial expressions, gestures and other behaviours. Understanding visual messages is therefore an important educational goal.

This chapter reports the results of ten viewing tasks administered to individual Mäori students in both general education settings and Mäori immersion settings. Eight tasks were administered in a videotaped one-to-one interview format, while the other two tasks were attempted in a station format.

National monitoring results are reported task by task so that results can be understood in relation to what the students were asked to do. To allow comparisons of performance between the 2002 and 2006 assessments, however, four of the ten tasks have been designated link tasks. Student performance data on these tasks are presented in this report, but the tasks are described only in general terms because they will be used again in 2006.

Mäori students in general education and students in Mäori immersion settings performed equally well on six of the ten tasks. Mäori students in general education scored statistically significantly higher on two tasks, and students in Mäori immersion settings scored statistically significantly higher on two tasks. These comparisons should be interpreted cautiously, for the reasons discussed in
Chapter 2, Issues Concerning The Assessments and Their Interpretation.

 
Chapter Graphic
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