Personal Health...

The focus in this chapter is on the interdependence of students, their communities, and the environment. Particular emphasis is given to safety issues at home, in communities, and in outdoor recreation settings.

The results for eight tasks are reported here. Three of these were identical for both year 4 and year 8, while three further tasks had overlapping components for year 4 and year 8 students, with additional components for year 8 students. Two tasks were administered only to year 4 students, and one task was administered only to year 8 students.

Five tasks were administered in one-to-one interview sessions, two in stations sessions, and one in a team setting.

Three 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. One of these was attempted by both year 4 and year 8 students, the second had common components for year 4 and year 8 students, and the third was attempted only by year 4 students. The other five tasks are released tasks for which full details are given.

The tasks are presented in the following order:

Although five tasks were identical or had overlapping components for year 4 and year 8 students, only four of these had overlapping components that were marked evaluatively. The other one was marked descriptively. Students' responses are a reflection of their ideas about how they might confront some real life happenings which have the potential to put their safety and well-being at risk. The results suggest that many students need ongoing opportunities to learn about possible risks and effective and appropriate courses of action.

Considering the four tasks which allowed a fair comparison between the performance of year 4 and year 8 students, on average about 20 percent more year 8 students than year 4 students gained high scores. The margin of superiority ranged from 11 percent of students on one of these tasks to 25 percent of students on another.


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