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The assessments
included 14 tasks that involved students in making oral presentations
for various purposes: telling stories, developing and presenting puppet
plays, presenting poems, talking on allocated topics, and developing
and asking questions.
Twelve of the tasks were identical for year 4 and year 8 students. One
task had the same instructions and the same marking procedures and criteria
for both year 4 and year 8 students, but simplified stimulus materials
for the year 4 students. The final task was for year 8 students only.
Five tasks are trend tasks (fully described with data for both 2000
and 2004), two are released tasks (fully described with data for 2004
only) and seven are link tasks (to be used again in 2008, so only partially
described here). The tasks are presented in that order.
The performances of year 4 and year 8 students in 2000 were compared
on 55 components of the 13 tasks attempted by both year levels. On average,
10 percent more year 8 than year 4 students scored well on these components.
Year 8 students scored higher on all except six of the components. Those
six components all involved presentation of poems or play reading, and
they related predominantly to the expressiveness with which these tasks
were undertaken. Year 8 students seemed less willing to commit themselves
enthusiastically to these tasks. The margin favouring year 8 students
was largest (an average of 20 percent) on Whakahoahoa, which asked the
students to introduce themselves.
Changes in performance between 2000 and 2004 could be examined on 23
components of the five trend tasks.
Averaged across these components, three percent more year 4 students
scored well on the components than in 2000, scoring higher on 18 components
and lower on five. This is a small increase, but reflected increases
on all five tasks.
A different picture emerged for year 8 students. Averaged across the
23 task components, there was no change in performance between 2000
and 2004, with gains on 13 components and losses on 10. However, this
pattern clearly was not consistent across tasks. On the first three
trend tasks, averaged across the 15 task components, six percent more
students in 2004 than in 2000 scored well. This gain was cancelled out
on the final two trend tasks (both of which involved reading and presenting
poems), where performance declined on all eight task components, with
on average 10 percent fewer students in 2004 than in 2000 scoring well.
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