Clumsy Tiger

The assessments included eighteen tasks which asked the students to listen to information presented orally or both orally and visually, and to repeat the information, answer questions using the information, or follow oral instructions. Some of the recordings used in these tasks included pictures as well as sound, but the details that students needed were provided mainly on the soundtrack. Students need to be able to listen to factual presentations, assertions, arguments or instructions, and to recall, interpret or follow them correctly.

Thirteen tasks were identical for year 4 and year 8 students, one was administered only to year 4 students, and four only to year 8 students. Four are trend tasks (fully described with data for both 1998 and 2002), six are released tasks (fully described with data for 2002 only), and eight are link tasks (to be used again in 2006, so only partially described here).
The tasks are presented in the three sections: trend tasks, then released tasks and finally link tasks. Within each section, tasks administered to both year 4 and year 8 students are presented first, followed by tasks administered only to year 4 students and then tasks administered only to year 8 students.

Averaged across 141 task components administered to both year 4 and year 8 students, 11 percent more year 8 than year 4 students succeeded with these components. Year 8 students performed better on 135 of the 141 components. The components with the largest differences were scattered across the tasks, as were the components on which year 8 students did not do better than year 4 students.

The trend analyses showed almost no change since 1998. Averaged across 25 task components attempted by year 4 students in both years, the same percentage of students succeeded in 2002 as in 1998. Gains occurred on 9 components and losses on 11 components. At year 8 level, with 24 task components included in the analysis, 1 percent more students succeeded in 2002 than in 1998. Gains occurred on 14 components, with losses on 10 components.

The students generally achieved quite high performance levels on task components that involved recalling and using specific factual information. Predictably, they were less successful where the task components involved interpretation or inference, such as distinguishing facts from opinions, interpreting messages in a story, or evaluating the merits of opposing arguments.