The 1999 science assessments included twenty-one assessment tasks related to the living world strand of the science curriculum.

Kia Moana Coastline

Fifteen tasks were identical or had many common components for year 4 and year 8 students. One of these is a trend task (fully described with data for both 1995 and 1999), seven are released tasks (fully described with data for 1999 only), and seven are link tasks (to be used again in 2003 so only partially described here). Four other tasks, including one trend tasks and one link task, were attempted only by year 4 students. The remaining two tasks, both of which were trend tasks, were attempted only by year 8 students.

The task details and results for trend tasks are presented in the first section, followed by the task details and results for released tasks. The third section contains a little task information and the results for the link tasks. Within each of the three sections, tasks used with both year 4 and year 8 students are presented first, followed by tasks used only with year 4 students and then by tasks used only with year 8 students.

Comparing results for year 4 and year 8 students
Averaged across 87 task components used with both year 4 and year 8 students, 13 percent more year 8 than year 4 students produced correct responses. This indicates that, on average, students have made useful progress between year 4 and year 8 in the skills assessed by the tasks. Not surprisingly, students at both levels were less successful in providing explanations for living world phenomena than in demonstrating their knowledge of the phenomena or their ability and classify and identify observable features of living world objects.

Trend results: Comparing 1995 and 1999 results
Two trend tasks involving a total of five components were administered to year 4 students in both the 1995 and 1999 assessments. More 1999 than 1995 students succeeded on two components, while more 1995 than 1999 students succeeded on three components. Averaged across the five components, one percent more students succeeded in 1999 than in 1995. This difference clearly is not important.

Three trend tasks involving six task components were administered to year 8 students in both the 1995 and 1999 assessments. More 1999 than 1995 students succeeded on three components, more 1995 than 1999 students succeeded on two components, and there was no difference on the sixth component. Averaged across the six components, one percent more students succeeded in 1999 than 1995. Again, this difference is clearly not important.