How Does it Work: Eggtimer

The assessments included twenty-three assessment tasks related to the physical world strand of the science curriculum.

Twelve tasks were identical or had many common components for year 4 and year 8 students. Four of these are trend tasks (fully described with data for both 1995 and 1999), four are released tasks (fully described with data for 1999 only), and four are link tasks (to be used again in 2003 so only partially described here).

Six other tasks, including two trend tasks and two link tasks, were attempted only by year 4 students. The remaining five tasks, including one trend task and two link 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 82 task components used with both year 4 and year 8 students, 12 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. Tasks involving experimentation and observation of phenomena were usually performed very well, but students were often less successful with tasks which required knowledge or explanation. In team experiments, students still placed little emphasis on replication of results (repeating a procedure and the associated observations or measurements to check on the consistency of results). Replication is a very important part of scientific investigation.

Trend results: Comparing 1995 and 1999 results
Six trend tasks involving a total of 45 components were administered to year 4 students in both the 1995 and 1999 assessments. More 1999 than 1995 students succeeded on 22 components, more 1995 than 1999 students succeeded on 17 components, and there was no difference on 6 components. Averaged across the 45 components, one percent more students succeeded in 1999 than in 1995. This difference clearly is not important.

Five trend tasks involving 39 task components were administered to year 8 students in both the 1995 and 1999 assessments. More 1999 than 1995 students succeeded on 12 components, more 1995 than 1999 students succeeded on 20 components, and there was no difference on seven components. Averaged across the six components, one percent fewer students succeeded in 1999 than 1995. Again, this difference clearly is not important.