Design  : Introduction
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The assessments included seven tasks which allowed students to demonstrate their capabilities in technological design.

Two of these tasks were identical for year 4 and year 8 students, one was attempted only by year 4 students, and two were attempted only by year 8 students. The final two tasks were similar in nature and marked to the same criteria, but there were significant differences in the stimulus materials for the year 4 and year 8 students.

One task which was identical for year 4 and year 8 students, and the pair of tasks which were similar for year 4 and year 8 students are link tasks (to be used again in the year 2000), and so are not described in detail here. The other four tasks are released tasks for which full details are given.

This chapter presents the assessment tasks and results in the following order:

  • the released task attempted by both year 4 and year 8 students
  • the released tasks attempted by either year 4 or year 8 students
  • the three link tasks.

Averaged across all task components attempted by both year 4 and year 8 students, including the four components for the very similar Link task 6 and Link task 7, only 6 percent of year 4 students achieved ''strong'' performance ratings compared to 21 percent of year 8 students. Using a less demanding criterion, on average 44 percent of year 4 students achieved ''strong'' or ''moderate'' performance ratings, compared to 68 percent of year 8 students. These results reveal substantial growth in design skills between year 4 and year 8.

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