: Introduction

The focus of this chapter is on relationships with other people, and includes assessment tasks dealing with relationships in classrooms, schools, families, and the wider community. Students were asked to show what they understood about how the attitudes, values, actions, and needs of people interact, and the influence of social and cultural factors.

The results for fourteen tasks are reported here. Thirteen of these were identical for both year 4 and year 8. The other task was administered only to year 8 students. Nine tasks were administered in one-to-one interview sessions and five in stations sessions.

Five 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. All of these were attempted by both year 4 and year 8 students. The other nine tasks are released tasks for which full details are given.

The tasks are presented in the following order:

Many of the tasks were not marked evaluatively, but rather to capture a picture of the students' ideas about relationships and ways of dealing with problem situations in relationships. On five tasks which had a clear evaluative focus, about 30 percent more year 8 than year 4 students achieved high scores. There was remarkable consistency from year 4 to year 8 in some areas, but substantial change in others. In regard to dealing with bullying or put-downs, for instance, year 8 students were much more likely than year 4 students to suggest a strategy of avoiding situations where the problem was likely to occur.