There were occasions when the Consequence preceded the Premise. However, this did not occur very often. The following table provides information on the distribution of the logical connectives in this situation.

The three students who were judged to have clear language and accurate answers used Premise - Consequence - Elaborator combinations such as 'and see if'. The following was from the Year 8 girl at a high decile school: 'you'd put them in and see which one's the lighter', whilst the following was from a Year 8 girl at a middle decile school: 'I'd put one packet in, that one, and one packet in that one and I'd see which one's the heaviest'. These combinations all had 'and' as the logical connective between the Premise and the Consequence. The other student who was approaching accuracy and had clear language used a series of Premise - Consequence combinations joined by 'so' and by 'then'. This Year 8 girl from a middle decile school also used a Consequence - Premise combination which was joined with 'because'.

Students who were accurate but whose responses were considered moderately clear were slightly less likely to use a Premise - Consequence - Elaborator combination. There was a further slight decrease in the proportion of students who were moderately clear but only approaching accuracy in their responses. This later group were also less likely to include a Conclusion than the former group. It may be that by explicitly teaching students to use a Premise - Consequence - Elaborator combination or a Conclusion that it may improve students' clarity of response but also their ability to use language as an aid to their thinking.

On the other hand, of the students who had responses judged as accurate but elliptical, none used a Premise - Consequence or Premise - Consequence - Elaborator combination. One student, Year 8 boy from a middle decile school, did join a Physical Consequence to a Consequence with 'so' but this was the only student in this group who did so. Students who were unclear about the task and elliptical similarly did not use these text elements or combinations. However, given that elliptical answers by their nature are brief, it is not surprising to find a lack of text elements or combinations.

Apart from the group that were accurate and clear, the proportion of students using Suppositions was fairly steady. It may be that having a succinct way of marking that a hypothetical situation is being described aids the chances that the response will be judged as clear. Propositional language is considered in more detail at the end of this chapter.

Compared with the analysis of the Better Buy task, the results for the Plan section of the Weigh Up task do not show very clear trends. There appeared to be little difference between the groups of students who gave answers judged on their accuracy and clarity. However, as their responses were examined, there did appear to be some differences. More girls, for example, used Elaborators, especially when combined with Premises. On the other hand, slightly more boys used consequences. Although the Better Buy task had shown that Year 8 students were more likely to be the ones who gave complex responses in terms of text structure, such a distinction was not evident in these responses. Nor did there seem to be a major distinction based on decile level of school attended and complexity of response. It would seem that what differences there were between groups were smaller and less clear cut than they had been in the Better Buy task.

For this part of the Weigh Up task, students were asked to talk through what they were doing as they were doing it. For some students, this was difficult and five students did not use a complete clause, even though they were asked (sometimes several times) by the teacher administrator to describe what they were doing. Other students who did respond only did so because they were prompted many times. An accurate answer was considered to be one in which the student successfully ordered the boxes from lightest to heaviest. An example of this would be the following, which came from a Year 8 girl from a low decile school:

Ok then, I'm going to estimate it first, and I'm estimating B then A then C then D. Ok, put these two on, and see which one is heaviest out of both of them, and it's A, and I'll put A on the side, this one will be the lightest, then I'll, I'll um, I'm guessing that um, that D is heavier than, I mean C is heavier, heavier than D, and it is, so D will go there and C will go there, and I'll just check, just better check .. ooh, hang on .. and that's my estimate.
Q
Test it one more time?
Q
Oh, hang on, I'll just check it one more time...Yep C, then A .. yes (very quietly to herself)..oh, hang on, B got beat then, D, B, A and C

Table 4.14 provides information on which students had accurate answers and clear language. Half of the boys from high decile schools were able to provide a clear accurate response to this task. Of the four Year 4 students who provided a clear, accurate response only one was not a boy from a high decile school. One third of girls from low decile schools also gave a clear accurate response, but these students were all in Year 8. The students who were unclear about the task were all in Year 4. Three were from low decile schools and three were boys. Of the 12 students who were approaching accuracy and moderately clear, eight were in Year 4.

There were some differences with Table 4.1 which showed the corresponding distribution for the Plan section of this task. There are significantly more students than in the Plan section who were considered to have provided an accurate response, with many of these being perceived as having clear language. As this task was done whilst actually doing the necessary comparisons on the balance, to be considered clear did not require students to be as explicit in their response as they needed to be in the first part of the task. Below is an example of an accurate response with clear language from a Year 4 girl from a middle decile school.

Well, you put them like A and B on each one, and A's gone down lower so it's heavier than B, so I'll put that there, and then you get.. like A and C, and C's heavier, because it went down, and then you get A and D, A's heavier, so that one's there, and I'll go .. B and C, and C's heavier, and then you go D and C, and C's still heavier, and then see what the heaviest out of B and D, and B's the heaviest, and then D's the lightest.

If this is compared with a response from another Year 4 girl from a middle decile school, the difference in clarity is quite obvious.

Ok .. ok .. that'll be, no I don't know that, that's one of the heavy ones and that's one of the lightest ones, and I'll try that one and that one .. this one's heavier .. that will probably be the heaviest .. and that one will be heavy .. ok, I'll take this one here off, put that one to there .. ok, that would be the next heaviest .. and .. this would be the lightest .. there

Both students worked through the comparisons to gain an accurate result and both explanations make sense when the video of the student doing the task is watched. It would be interesting to understand what prompts some students to provide explanations closer to a written version so that they can be understood without the context being known. Heath's (1982) work suggested that the students' understandings, gleaned from their backgrounds, of what types of responses 'school questions' require, are not always appropriate. Certainly it would seem that 9 out of the 17 students who were deemed to be accurate and clear came from high decile schools. Research by Zevenbergen (2001) suggested that students from middle class backgrounds are more likely to have responded at home to questions similar to those used at schools. When compared with the responses to the Plan section of the task, it seems that students found it easier to provide the extra details needed to make the explanation understandable when they were actually performing the task. This suggests that not just students' backgrounds but also the task requirements affect students' abilities to show what they know in school-expected ways.

The most used element in these responses was not the Premise as was the case in all the other tasks and the other parts of this task, it was, instead, the Physical Consequence. Given that there were 5 students who did not respond verbally to this task, there were only 3 students who did not use a Physical Consequence in their response. The other elements were used in similar amounts to those in the Plan section of this task.

As also was the case in the Plan, there were very few patterns in the distribution of who used which elements. Premises and Elaborators were used slightly more often by students from high decile schools. It also appears that more Year 8 students than Year 4 students used Consequences. Suppositions seem to be used more by girls than boys and by students attending middle decile schools than other types of schools. However, the differences in all of these trends are not large and so nothing can be stated definitively.

Only one student, a Year 4 girl from a middle decile school used 'say' as a Supposition. She said, 'oh whether the say, I got put those two in, I'd leave that one there', in a fairly incoherent response. There were also two instances of students using 'say' which were coded as other elements but had features of suppositions. A Year 8 boy from a high decile schools said, 'and, and then you say, well, A and B and see which is the heaviest'. It is not absolutely clear what he meant, but there is a sense that he is proposing that A and B boxes should be tried next. A Year 4 boy, also from a high decile school said, 'and just measure this B one again, that one goes D and B then I'd say A and, oops, C', where 'I'd say' was coded as a Consequence but does exhibit features of being a proposition, as it suggests that A follows D and B (the correct ordering of the boxes was B, A, D and C).

Although there was a limited use of 'say', other terms used to suggest propositions or courses of action were coded as Suppositions. One student used 'suppose' to suggest that she was putting forward a proposition. A Year 8 girl from a middle decile school said, 'yeah, A's the heaviest with that one ... yeah, still too light, so ... suppose it's D ... this's about the same ... no, this one's heavier'. 'Suppose' has been used to suggest that box D be tried with Box A to find out which box is heaviest and she then discovers by using the balance that D is the heavier of the two. A Year 4 girl, also from a middle decile school, used 'will probably' to suggest what might happen when two boxes went on the balance in the following extract: 'put the D there, the D will probably go up, but it went down then'. A Year 8 girl from a high decile school also used 'probably' to lessen the certainty of her suggestions. These were not generalisations, but were rather predictions of immediate actions.

There were 11 students who used 'I think' in their response. It was once again, difficult to determine whether these were hedges or whether they were genuinely expressing uncertainty about the suggestion that they were making. The following is an example of a use of 'I think' by a Year 8 boy from a high decile school, which appears to genuinely be suggesting a proposition; 'I think this one's going to be the lightest because it was higher than the rest.' But as he completes the sentence, his own belief about the certainty of the statement seems clearer, as he gives the reason for that the belief. It may well be that by the end of the sentence the 'I think' represents a hedge but when the boy began the sentence it was proposing an idea rather than a certainty and thus was a true supposition. This difficulty in determining students' intentions when they used 'I think' has resulted in them being classified as Suppositions rather than as hedges.

As well as using 'I think' to make suggestions, there were also students who talked about 'guessing' or 'estimating' which box was the heavier of two or the order of all four boxes. The following example from a Year 8 girl from a low decile school illustrates this: 'I'm going to estimate it first, and I'm estimating B then A then C then D.' Although these were usually coded as Premises, they had many common features with Suppositions, as they were putting forward an idea as a possibility or probability rather than as a stated fact. Table 4.16 sets out the distribution of these Suppositions.

In this part of the Weigh Up task, all students began their responses with an Introduction, a Premise or a Physical Consequence. Although most students (48) began with a Premise, 16 began with a Physical Consequence. This was more than double the number who began this way in responding to the Plan. From this larger number, it can be seen that for this part of the task, students from high decile schools were the least likely to use a Physical Consequence at the beginning of their responses. Apart from this, it would appear that the distribution of students using text structures beginning with different combinations of elements is fairly evenly spread.

As Elaborators were used by 40 students, it was interesting to look at which elements were combined with Elaborators by which groups of students. In Table 4.18, the second number is the total number of students, who used the elements: Premise; Consequence; Suppositions; and Physical Consequences.

It can be seen from Table 4.18 that Consequences were the most likely element to be combined with Elaborators. Physical Consequences were the elements which were the least likely to have Elaborators following them. However, students were less inclined to follow a Consequence with an Elaborator than they had been in responding to the Plan. In the Plan, just over 75% of students who used a Consequence combined it with an Elaborator. In this section, half of the students combined Consequences with Elaborators. It would also seem that students from low decile schools were more likely, if they used a Consequence to follow it with an Elaborator whereas students from middle decile schools were the least likely. Except for Consequences, students from low decile schools were the least likely group to use Elaborators. However, the numbers of students are still small and it is difficult to make any conclusive comments. Apart from Consequences, girls were more inclined to follow a text element with an Elaborator than boys were. Table 4.15 showed the equal numbers of boys and girls used Elaborators, but it would appear that girls use them more often and with a wider range of text elements.

The following sets of tables show the distribution of logical connectives between different elements. Although it would have been useful to be able to present the same set of tables as was provided in the Plan part of the task, there were significant differences in where different logical connectives were used. For example, in front of Premises, ten different logical connectives were used. None of these connectives had been used by more than two students. Therefore, these results are not given in a table format.

Although there were more students using Consequences in this part of the Weigh Up task, fewer students used logical connectives to join Premises with Consequences. The first table provides information on the distribution on students using a Premise (- Elaborator) - Consequence combination of elements.

The above table shows the distribution of logical connectives between premises (- Elaborators) and Consequences (- Elaborators). Although there were similar numbers of students using the combinations in the first and second sections of this task, there was significantly less use of logical connectives. For example, there were 20 fewer students using 'and' as a logical connective. Only the number of students using 'so' increased, but not by much.

This decrease in the number of connectives used was not evident when the Consequence was preceded by the Premise. There were 10 students rather than the 8 students in the earlier section of the task who joined these with logical connectives. 'Because', however, was the only connective used. Out of these 10 students, 8 girls used it, 8 Year 8 students and 5 students from high decile schools. When these results are combined with the results from the responses to the Plan, it would certainly seem that girls are more likely to use a connective between a Consequence - Premise combination. The trend is not as strong, but it would also appear that Year 8 students are also more likely to use a logical connective in this combination. The situation for the effect of decile level of school attended is not so clear.

Table 4.21 provides information on the distribution of logical connectives between Consequences; 'and' is again the most common one. There are more students, mainly girls and Year 8 students, using it than had been the case in the Plan section of the task. There are similar numbers and distribution of students using 'and then' to those in the first part of the task. However, in this part of the task, more students have chosen to use 'so' between their Consequences, suggesting that they were building onto each other rather than being independent Consequences of the same Premise or Physical Consequence. The following from a Year 4 boy from a high decile school illustrates this.

Well, I take pebble cases B and C, I put C on and see that it weighs it all the way down, so I put B on.

The first two clauses were coded as Premises (Well, I take pebble cases B and C, I put C on) and the next clause was a Consequence followed by an Elaborator (see that it weighs it all the way down) which was then followed by another Consequence that was introduced with 'so'. The whole of this student's response shows how he used 'so' to link together not just Consequence to Consequence but also Physical Consequence to Consequence and Consequence to implicit Conclusion.

Well, I take pebble cases B and C, I put C on and see that it weighs it all the way down, so I put B on, and from what I see here, I shall take them off and then I shall put them down at the same time and I see there's a .. ah huh! B is heavier than C, I mean C is heavier than B, yeh. So, I don't know where they go so I'll, I just put them in the middle at the moment and I take C out and do it against D, see which is heaviest .. C is heavier than D....now .. C is still heavier than A so C is heavier than all, so I'll take them off .. C is the heaviest. Now I weigh these two .. will that differ? .. let's see which is heaviest...B is heavy so I weigh it against A .. now it's A is heavier than B so I put A here because it's heavier than B and B is heavier than D so I've got them in order

Physical Consequences as the most common text element in this section of the task were also connected to other text elements with logical connectives. The next series of tables shows the distribution of students using logical connectives with Physical Consequences.

Although Table 4.23 shows that more girls than boys and more Year 4 students than Year 8 students used 'and' between Physical Consequences, the numbers of students is small. Given that, in this task, there were 62 students who used Physical Consequences, it was expected that there would be many logical connectives joining Physical Consequences to preceding elements and to other Physical Consequences. Even when all the logical connectives in the last two tables are added together, it does not equal the number of students using Physical Consequences (46 to 62). This, of course, does not take into account that there may be some duplication of students in different rows of the tables.

When the results from these tables are compared with the two previous ones showing the logical connectives in front of and between Consequences, there are some differences. More students used logical connectives between Premises and Consequences and between Consequences than they did between Physical Consequences. This is perhaps not surprising, given that Consequences build on previously given information and so there is more need of a link. On the other hand, Physical Consequences reflect the results of actions and are thus less likely to be joined to anything else. However, when Consequences arose from Physical Consequences, they were often joined with a logical connective.