 |
The
assessments included 10 tasks investigating students’ knowledge,
understandings and processes in the area of social organisation.
This area focuses on how people are organised in groups and the
rights, roles and responsibilities of people as they interact
within groups.
Six tasks were identical for both year 4 and year 8, one was attempted
only by year 4 students and three only by year 8 students. Five
are trend tasks (fully described with data for both 2001 and 2005),
one is a released task (fully described with data for 2005 only)
and four are link tasks (to be used again in 2009, so only partially
described here).
|
The tasks are presented in the three sections: trend tasks, then
the released task and finally the link tasks. Within each section,
tasks administered to both year 4 and year 8 students are presented
first, followed by tasks administered only to year 4 students
and then tasks administered only to year 8 students.
Averaged across 57 task components administered to both year 4
and year 8 students, 10 percent more year 8 than year 4 students
succeeded with these components. Year 8 students performed better
on 50 of the 57 components. The components with the largest differences
were scattered across most of the tasks, as were the components
on which year 8 students did not do better than year 4 students.
Between 2001 and 2005, there was a small gain for year 4 students
and little change for year 8 students. Averaged across 31 trend
task components attempted by year 4 students in both years, three
percent more students succeeded in 2005 than in 2001. Gains occurred
on 20 of the 31 components. At year 8 level, with 43 trend task
components included, on average one percent more students succeeded
in 2005 than in 2001. Gains occurred on 25 of the 43 components.
Both year 4 and year 8 students were quite successful in identifying
issues in school conflict situations. Perhaps predictably, they
were more inclined to see the solutions coming through adult interventions
than through student initiatives. Students at both year levels
saw leadership in student activities as involving taking charge
and telling others what to do, but indicated that to be successful
this needed to be done in a pleasant and fair way. When the focus
shifted from school relationship issues to community disasters
or to other issues with which students had less experience, their
ability to conceptualise the issues and address them was understandably
lower, but their concepts of a “good citizen” focused
predominantly on personal and interpersonal qualities that would
be just as valuable among children in classrooms as among adults
in the wider community. |
|
