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The
assessments included eight tasks investigating students’
knowledge, understandings and processes in the area of place and
environment. This area focuses on developing understanding of
people’s interactions with places and the environment, and
the ways in which people represent and interpret place and environment.
Several of the national monitoring tasks explored students’
factual knowledge of New Zealand and the world.
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Seven tasks were identical for both year 4 and year 8. One task
was administered only to year 8 students. Four 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 three 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 8 students.
Averaged across 58 task components administered to both year 4
and year 8 students, 20 percent more year 8 than year 4 students
succeeded with these components. Year 8 students performed better
on 55 of the 58 components.
On the trend tasks, there was no meaningful evidence of change
between 2001 and 2005. Averaged across 22 trend task components
attempted by year 4 students in both years, the same percentage
of students succeeded in 2005 as in 2001. Gains occurred on 13
of the 22 components. At year 8 level, with 21 trend task components
included, on average 1 percent more students succeeded in 2005
than in 2001. Gains occurred on 12 of the 21 components.
Most students at both year levels were able to identify key differences
between diverse living environments in different countries, but
predictably were less able to comprehend the implications of these
differences for someone moving from one country to another. Year
4 students showed little knowledge of finer details of New Zealand
geography, but about half could match the names of the three largest
cities to appropriate marked spots on a New Zealand map. Year
8 students fared better, but less than half could match the names
and pictures of the three best-known mountains to marked map locations. |
