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The assessments
included eighteen tasks that explored how well the students could find
and gather information. Specifically, the tasks explored students know-ledge
and skills relating to:
- the organisation
of libraries, reference books and other books
- the types of
information available from different sources
- finding particular
information in books, pamphlets, diagrams, video recordings
- CD-ROMs and a
simulation of the internet
- extracting and
recording relevant information
Five tasks were identical for year 4 and year 8 students, two included
common components for both years but additional components for year
8 students, four were attempted only by year 4 students, and seven were
attempted only by year 8 students. Ten are trend tasks (fully described
with data for both 1997 and 2001), three are released tasks (fully described
with data for 2001 only), and five are link tasks (to be used again
in 2005, so only partially described here).
The trend tasks are presented first, followed by the released tasks
and then the link tasks.
Within each of these sections, tasks attempted by both years and parallel
tasks (where year 4 and year 8 students attempted similar tasks) are
presented first, followed by tasks attempted only by year 4 students
and finally tasks attempted only by year 8 students.
Year 8 students enjoyed substantially more success than year 4 students.
Averaged across 23 task components attempted by both years, 21 percent
more year 8 than year 4 students succeeded well with the components.
Most students were quite successful at locating specified information
in printed resources, understanding how these resources are structured,
and understanding which are most suitable for particular purposes. Fewer
had clear understanding of how libraries are organised, were good at
notetaking, or explained fully the range of processes involved in project
work. Few year 4 students were successful with the two tasks that simulated
web searching.
There was evidence of modest improvement between 1997 and 2001 for year
4 students, but little change for year 8 students. Averaged across 29
task components attempted by year 4 students in both years, 5 percent
more students succeeded with these components in 2001 than in 1997.
At year 8 level, with 48 components included in the analysis, 1 percent
fewer students succeeded in 2001 than in 1997.
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