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| Overview: Tasks
relating to continuity and change were marked by high variability
in performance, and substantial growth from year 4 to year 8
on most, but not all, tasks. Some students were able to understand
issues from the past as well as current events, and provide good
discussions of them. Other students, particularly at year 4,
struggled with these tasks. Performance at both year levels declined
slightly between 2005 and 2009. |
The
assessments included nine tasks investigating students’ knowledge,
understandings and processes in the area of time, continuity
and change. This area focuses on relationships between people
and events through time, and the interpretation of those findings.
Performance varied considerably. Some students did very well, providing
good explanations and understandings of issues, and why they were
important. Other students struggled with the tasks. Growth from
year 4 to year 8 was substantial on most tasks. For example, on
New Zealand Current Events (p33), about half of the year 8 students
gave full or moderately good descriptions of events in the news,
compared to about one quarter of year 4 students. It is interesting
to note on this task the influence of the election that was taking
place during or soon after the administration of the 2005 assessments.
Timeline (p32) is another example of wide variability in performance,
with a lot of growth from year 4 to year 8.
In contrast to the variability seen in most tasks, students generally
did well on School Days (p31) which asked students to compare schooling
from a past era to their schooling today. This task was highly
engaging to students as they could see the relevance to their own
lives.
Three tasks were identical for year 4 and year 8 and had been administered
previously in the 2005 assessment (trend tasks). There was one
year 8 only task that had been administered previously (also a
trend task). There is one task that is new to this administration
and is being released with full information in this report (a “released” task).
It is very similar in year 4 and year 8, but uses a different video
stimulus, and results are reported separately. There are three
tasks identical for year 4 and year 8 that are not being released
fully in this report, so that they might be used again in a future
administration (link tasks). Trend tasks are presented first, then
released tasks, then link tasks.
Averaged across 63 task components administered to both year 4
and year 8 students, 12% more year 8 than year 4 students succeeded
with these components. Performance in 2009 dropped slightly from
2005. Averaged across 15 components attempted by year 4 students,
2% fewer students succeeded in 2009 than in 2005. At year 8 level,
across 26 task components, again 2% fewer students succeeded in
2009 than in 2005. |
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