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| Overview: In
the area of social organisation, students were successful
on tasks that asked them about situations that they could
relate to personally, but had difficulty on tasks that
asked about broader social issues. Growth from year 4 to
year 8 was moderate, similar to that in other areas of
social studies. Few students at either year were able to
explain how a person becomes a Member of Parliament. |
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The assessments
included eight 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.
In terms of tasks regarding social organisation, students did fairly
well on those tasks that were pertinent to their lives: they were
good at talking about how children ought to behave in groups to
accomplish a goal, such as in Water
Only Kids (p15) and Lucky Dip
Stall (p16). But when the task called for knowledge about electoral
procedures (Parliament, p14) or how a group should work out a broader
social problem, such as Rimu Logs (p17), many students had difficulty
in discussing the issues involved. Very few students could provide
any level of explanation of how a person becomes a Member of Parliament
(11% at year 4 and 35% at year 8). Thus we see students doing fairly
well on issues they understand and that are pertinent to their
lives, but having trouble generalising those skills to situations
that might be considered to be new and different, or that call
for specific knowledge. This pattern was seen in the link tasks
as well as the trend tasks.
Seven tasks were identical for both year 4 and year 8; one was
attempted only by year 8 students. Four are trend tasks (fully
described with data for both 2005 and 2009) and four are link tasks,
only partially described here so that they might be used in a later
administration.
The tasks are presented in two sections: first the trend tasks
and then 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.
There was moderate growth in performance from year 4 to year 8.
Averaged across 84 task components administered to both year 4
and year 8 students, 13% more year 8 than year 4 students succeeded
with these components.
Between 2005 and 2009, there were small declines for both year
4 and year 8 students. Averaged across 32 trend task components
attempted by year 4 students in both years, 1% fewer students succeeded
in 2009 than in 2005. At year 8 level, with 42 trend task components
included, on average 2% fewer students succeeded in 2009 than in
2005. |
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