|
The assessments
included eight tasks which involved students in silent reading to obtain
information, answer questions and make decisions.
 Four of
the tasks were identical for year 4 and year 8 students. The other four
tasks were in effect two pairs of tasks. Each pair had similar instructions,
marking procedures, and marking criteria, but differed in the stimulus
materials and questions asked.
Two of
the tasks are link tasks (to be used again in the year 2000) and therefore
are not described in detail here. The other tasks are released tasks
for which full details are given.
The chapter
presents the assessment results in the following order:
• the released
tasks attempted by both year 4 and year 8 students;
• the released tasks attempted separately by year 4 and year 8 students;
• the two tasks which will be used as link tasks, both of which
were identical for year 4 and year 8 students.
In the reading comprehension
tasks, results showed that year 8 students demonstrated consistently
higher levels of skill than year 4 students. When text and questions
were presented with increasing complexity, the percentage of year 4 students
able to handle the more demanding material declined markedly. Overall,
few students were able to give full answers to questions that required
them to construct and write their own answers rather than select from
multiple choice options.
Results for tasks with
set time limits showed that a high percentage of year 8 students and
moderate percentage of year 4 students could accurately locate information,
but that their ability to complete the information for every item in
the task was constrained by the amount of time available. This, in turn,
may suggest that many students are unable to quickly and effectively
skim and scan for specific items of information.
|
