The
assessments included sixteen tasks related to the Planet Earth and
Beyond strand of the science curriculum.
Eight
tasks were identical or had many common components for year 4 and year
8 students. Two of these are trend tasks (fully described with data for
both 1995 and 1999), three are released tasks (fully described with data
for 1999 only), and three are link tasks (to be used again in 2003 so
only partially described here). Four other tasks, including one link
task, were attempted only by year 4 students. The remaining four tasks,
one of which was a link task, 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 34 task components used with both year 4 and year 8 students,
nine percent more year 8 than year 4 students produced correct responses.
This indicates that, on average, students have made modest progress between
year 4 and year 8 in the skills assessed by the tasks. Hidden within
this picture of modest progress, however, were very small differences
on task components requiring careful observation and description, but
much larger differences on task components requiring explanation of mechanisms
or issues.
Trend
results:
Comparing 1995 and 1999 results Although the assessments included two trend
tasks, one of these focussed predominantly on attitudes to pollution and
the other included just three brief objective items. Accordingly, it is
inappropriate to try to summarise trends in performance for this curriculum
stand. In four year's time, there will be sufficient trend tasks to allow
a comparison between performance on this strand in 1999 and 2003. |
