Framework for National Monitoring Assessment
National monitoring task frameworks are developed by the Project’s curriculum advisory panels. These frameworks have two key purposes. They provide a valuable guideline structure for the development and selection of tasks, and they bring into focus those important dimensions of the learning domain that are arguably the basis for valid analyses of students’ skills, knowledge and understandings.
The frameworks are organising tools which interrelate content with strategies, skills and processes. They are intended to be flexible and broad enough to encourage and enable the development of tasks that lead to meaningful descriptions of what students know and can do. They also provide help to ensure a balanced representation of important learning outcomes.
The music framework developed for the 2000 assessments was reviewed and revised by the Music Advisory Panel for the 2004 assessments. The framework has a central organising theme supported by three interrelated aspects.

The theme, “making, understanding and responding to music” sets the broad context for tasks.

The content aspect highlights four broad aspects of music: creating, performing, understanding and responding to music.

The processes aspect lists the areas of skill, knowledge and understanding that students could be expected to demonstrate while engaged with content. The skills, knowledge and understandings are highly interrelated both within the processes aspect and across the total framework.

The motivation and involvement aspect of the framework directs attention to the importance of having information about students’ musical interests, attitudes, confidence and involvement, both within and beyond the school setting. Educational research and practice confirm the impact of student motivation and attitudes on achievement and learning outcomes.

The Choice of Music Tasks for National Monitoring
The choice of music tasks for national monitoring is guided by a number of educational and practical considerations. Uppermost in any decisions relating to the choice or administration of a task is the central consideration of validity and the effect that a whole range of decisions can have on this key attribute. Tasks are chosen because they provide a good representation of important dimensions of a music education, but also because they meet a number of requirements to do with their administration and presentation. For example:

• Each task with its associated materials needs to be structured to ensure a high level of consistency in the way it is presented by specially trained teacher administrators to students of wide-ranging backgrounds and abilities, and in diverse settings throughout New Zealand.

• Tasks need to span the expected range of capabilities of year 4 and 8 students and to allow the most able students to show the extent of their abilities while also giving the least able the opportunity to show what they can do.

• Materials for music tasks need to be sufficiently portable, economical, safe and within the handling capabilities of students. Viewing and listening components need to be chosen to have meaning for students.

• The time needed for completing an individual task has to be balanced against the total time available for all of the assessment tasks, without denying students sufficient opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities.

• Each task needs to be capable of sustaining the attention and effort of students if they are to produce responses that truly indicate what they know and can do. Since neither the student nor the school receives immediate or specific feedback on performance, the motivational potential of the assessment is critical.

• Tasks need to avoid unnecessary bias on the grounds of gender, culture or social background while accepting that it is appropriate to have tasks that reflect the interests of particular groups within the community.