64kScience is an active process which draws upon and contributes towards a growing and changing body of knowledge. It is a universal discipline which involves using knowledge, understandings, skills and imagination to tackle problems and to investigate objects and events of the real world. A science education encourages students to have enquiring minds and to make sense of the actions and interactions of the biological and physical features of their environment.
Science
and the National Curriculum
Science education represents part of a balanced curriculum for all New
Zealand school students. The science curriculum is organised into four
major areas of learning which are intended to help students make sense
of the living world, the physical world, the material world, and planet
Earth and beyond. Since science is both a process of enquiry and a body
of knowledge, the curriculum also requires that students are helped to
develop scientific ideas, skills and attitudes, and
"acquire an understanding of the nature of science and its relationship
to technology".
Within the major areas of content, the aims of a science education include the development of knowledge and understanding, skills of scientific investigation, and attitudes on which such investigation depends. Science is promoted as an activity that is carried out by people as part of their everyday life. Students are to be helped to "explore issues and to make responsible and considered decisions about the use of science and technology in the environment".
Framework
for National Monitoring Assessment of Students' Knowledge,
Skills and Attitudes in Science
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 important dimensions of the learning domain
that should be included in valid analyses of students' knowledge, skills
and attitudes.
The frameworks are organising tools that interrelate main ideas, processes and attitudes with reference to important learning outcomes. 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.
The science framework has a central organising theme supported by three interrelated aspects. The central organising theme , "Science in everyday contexts", sets the broad context for tasks and is consistent with the aims of New Zealand's official science curriculum.
| Learning in science is fundamental to understanding the world in which we live and work. It helps people to clarify ideas, to ask questions, to test explanations through measurement and observation, and to use their findings to establish the worth of an idea. |
Science
in the New Zealand Curriculum, 1993 |
The
Choice of Science Tasks for National Monitoring
The choice of science 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 science
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 science tasks need to be sufficiently portable, economical, safe and within the handling capabilities of students. Visual items need to depict images and contexts that 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. |
National
Monitoring Science Assessment Tasks
Seventy-five science tasks were administered, using three different
approaches. Thirty-nine tasks were administered in one-to-one interview
settings, where students used materials and visual information. Ten
tasks were presented in team situations involving small groups of
students working together. Twenty tasks were attempted in a stations
arrangement, where each student worked independently on a series
of paper and pencil tasks, many of which included the use of hands-on
materials or visual information. Six tasks were administered in paper-and-pencil
form using an independent approach.
Forty-three of the 75 tasks were the same or substantially the same for both year 4 and 8, while 17 tasks were unique to year 4 and 15 tasks unique to year 8.
Trend
Tasks
Nineteen of the tasks in this report were previously used in identical
form in the 1995 assessments. There were called link tasks in
the 1995 report, but were not described in detail to avoid any distortions
in 1999 results that might have occurred if the tasks had been widely
available for use in schools since 1995. In the current report, these
tasks are called trend tasks and are used to examine trends in
student performance: whether they have improved, stayed constant or declined
over the four year period since the 1995 assessments.
Link
Tasks
To allow comparisons of performance between the 1995 and 2003 assessments,
26 of the tasks used for the first time in 1999 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 2003.
National
Monitoring Science Survey
Additional to the assessment tasks, students completed a questionnaire
that investigated their interests, attitudes and involvement in science
activity. Marking methods The students' responses were assessed using
specially designed marking procedures. The criteria used had been developed
in advance by Project staff, but were sometimes modified as a result
of issues raised during the marking. Tasks that required marker judgement
and were common to year 4 and year 8 were intermingled during marking
sessions, with the goal of ensuring that the same scoring standards and
procedures were used for both.
Task
by task reporting
National monitoring assessment is reported task by task so that results
can be understood in relation to what the students were asked to do.