In 2005, the third year of the second cycle of national monitoring, three areas were assessed: mathematics, social studies and information skills. This report presents details and results of the social studies assessments.
New Zealand’s National Education Monitoring Project commenced in 1993, with the task of assessing and reporting on the achievement of New Zealand primary school children in all areas of the school curriculum. Children are assessed at two class levels: year 4 (halfway through primary education) and year 8 (at the end of primary education). Different curriculum areas and skills are assessed each year, over a four-year cycle. The main goal of national monitoring is to provide detailed information about what children know, think and can do, so that patterns of performance can be recognised, successes celebrated, and desirable changes to educational practices and resources identified and implemented.
Each year, random samples of children are selected nationally, then assessed in their own schools by teachers specially seconded and trained for this work. Task instructions are given orally by teachers, through video presentations, on laptop computers, or in writing. Many of the assessment tasks involve the children in the use of equipment and materials. Their responses are presented orally, by demonstration, in writing, in computer files, or through other physical products. Many of the responses are recorded on videotape for subsequent analysis.
Key Results
Assessing social studies
Chapter 2 explains the place of social studies in the New Zealand curriculum and presents the social studies framework. It identifies five areas of knowledge or curriculum strands: social organisation; culture and heritage; place and environment; time, continuity and change; and resources and economic activities.
These are linked to three key processes and placed in the context of local, regional and global communities. The importance of attitudes and motivation is also highlighted.
Social organisation
Chapter 3 presents the students’ results on 10 social organisation tasks. 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. 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. At year 8 level, with 43 trend task components included, on average one percent more students succeeded in 2005 than in 2001.
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.
Culture and heritage
Chapter 4 presents results for 10 culture and heritage tasks. Averaged across 68 task components administered to both year 4 and year 8 students, 14 percent more year 8 than year 4 students succeeded with these components. There was evidence of a small gain between 2001 and 2005 for year 4 students and little change for year 8 students. Averaged across the 39 trend task components attempted by year 4 students in both years, three percent more students succeeded in 2005 than in 2001. At year 8 level, with 43 trend task components included, on average two percent more students succeeded in 2005 than in 2001.
Most students were able to associate iconic symbols with New Zealand. As in earlier assessments, they were not very knowledgeable about the key elements of the New Zealand flag. Although most students at both year levels were generally supportive of keeping the current flag, more than two thirds of year 8 students could identify alternative elements that they associated with New Zealand and thought might be suitable on a New Zealand flag. The New Zealand Coat of Arms would have been less familiar to them, but its current form was also strongly supported by students at both year levels, few of whom made suggestions for changes. A high proportion of students clearly had had opportunities to learn about Māori culture and protocols, but the level of knowledge and understanding was generally quite superficial. Teams of students at both year levels were able to identify similarities and differences between cultural customs that they read about, but tended to focus on just a few features rather than attempt a more fine-grained analysis.
Place and environment
Chapter 5 presents results for eight place and environment tasks. 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. 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. At year 8 level, with 21 trend task components included, on average one percent more students succeeded in 2005 than in 2001.
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.
Time, continuity and change
Chapter 6 presents results for eight time, continuity and change tasks. Averaged across 28 task components administered to both year 4 and year 8 students, 23 percent more year 8 than year 4 students succeeded with these components. There was evidence of useful improvement between 2001 and 2005 on the single trend task for year 4 students and the two trend tasks for year 8 students. Because the improvements were mainly associated with four components of a single task (Rodney’s Window), these results should be interpreted with caution. Averaged across the four trend task components attempted by year 4 students in both years, nine percent more students succeeded in 2005 than in 2001. At year 8 level, with 15 trend task components included, seven percent more students succeeded in 2005 than in 2001.
Most students at both year levels could identify visible changes that had occurred across time. Year 8 students were much better able than year 4 students to explain good and bad implications of these changes for people living in the different times. Substantial numbers of year 8 students showed significant knowledge of New Zealand history, but only a minority had reasonable knowledge of the timing of major events. Understandably, year 4 students had very limited historical knowledge. About half of year 8 students could talk about one or more current world issues, with most of the remainder mentioning at least one national or local issue instead. Faced with the same task, about half of the year 4 students were not able to articulate any relevant issue (local, national or international).
Resources and economic activities
Chapter 7 presents results for nine resources and economic activities tasks. Averaged across 58 task components administered to both year 4 and year 8 students, 10 percent more year 8 than year 4 students succeeded with these components. On the trend tasks, there was no meaningful evidence of change between 2001 and 2005. Averaged across just seven trend task components attempted by year 4 students in both years, three percent fewer succeeded in 2005 than in 2001. At year 8 level, again with seven trend task components included, on average one percent fewer students succeeded in 2005 than in 2001.
Understanding of resource and economic issues proved a major challenge for both year 4 and year 8 students, and was clearly beyond the reach of a majority of year 4 students. By year 8, many students are starting to grasp these issues, but it is probably fair to say that the issues still have limited perceived relevance for them at this stage in their lives. It appears that environmental issues have captured their attention and understanding to a substantially greater extent than issues of economics and scarcity of resources.
Survey
Chapter 8 focuses on the results of a survey that sought information from students about their curriculum preferences and perceptions of their own achievement. Social studies was the twelfth most popular of 14 subjects for year 4 students and eleventh equal for year 8 students. These results may be misleadingly low because social studies is often embedded in theme work and not easily identified as social studies.
Asked “How much do you think you learn in social studies at school?”, 19 percent fewer year 4 students chose the most positive rating in 2005 than in 1997. This decline apparently occurred earlier, between 1997 and 2001. Less than 50 percent of year 4 students thought that their class did really good things in social studies “heaps” or “quite a lot”. Almost three quarters of year 4 students were very keen to learn about living in the future, but 29 percent said that they “never” learned about this in social studies at school. Nevertheless, 80 percent of year 4 students were positive about doing social studies at school and about learning or doing more social studies as they got older.
The results for year 8 students are somewhat more concerning. The percentage of year 8 students who were highly positive about doing social studies at school had dropped from 19 percent in 1997 to 11 percent in 2005, although the percentage that was at least mildly positive had stayed almost constant at 71 to 72 percent. Asked “How much do you think you learn in social studies at school?”, 17 percent fewer year 8 students chose the most positive rating in 2005 than in 1997. Like their year 4 counterparts, two thirds of year 8 students were very keen to learn about living in the future, but 39 percent said that they “never” learned about this in social studies at school.
Performance of subgroups
Chapter 9 details the results of analyses comparing the performance of different demographic subgroups.
Community size, school size and school type (full primary, intermediate, or year 7 to 13 high school) and geographic zone did not seem to be important factors predicting achievement on the social studies tasks. The same was true for the 2001 and 1997 assessments. However, there were statistically significant differences in the performance of students from low, medium and high decile schools on 53 percent of the tasks at year 4 level (compared to 67 percent in 2011 and 53 percent in 1997) and 56 percent of the tasks at year 8 level (compared to 49 percent in 2001 and 73 percent in 1997).
For the comparisons of boys with girls, Pakeha with Māori, Pakeha with Pasifika students, and students for whom the predominant language at home was English with those for whom it was not, effect sizes were used. Effect size is the difference in mean (average) performance of the two groups, divided by the pooled standard deviation of the scores on the particular task. For this summary, these effect sizes were averaged across all tasks.
Year 4 girls averaged very slightly higher than boys, with a mean effect size of 0.01 (in 2001, year 4 boys had a small advantage with a mean effect size of 0.06). Year 8 girls averaged very slightly higher than boys, with a mean effect size of 0.03 (very similar to the mean effect size of 0.02 in 2001). As was also true in 2001, the Social Studies Survey results showed some evidence that year 8 girls were more positive than boys about social studies activities.
Pakeha students averaged moderately higher than Māori students, with mean effect sizes of 0.24 for both year 4 and year 8 students (the corresponding figures in 2001 were 0.28 and 0.32). Māori students were more positive than Pakeha students on four questions of the Social Studies Survey at year 4 level and one question at year 8 level.
Year 4 Pakeha students averaged moderately higher than Pasifika students, with a mean effect size of 0.24 (a noteworthy reduction in disparity from 0.47 in 2001). Year 8 Pakeha students averaged substantially higher than Pasifika students, with a large mean effect size of 0.42 (reduced from 0.51 in 2001). Pasifika students were more positive than Pakeha students on some questions of the Social Studies Survey at both year levels.
Compared to students for whom the predominant language at home was English, students from homes where other languages predominated averaged slightly lower at year 4 level (mean effect size of 0.08) and moderately lower at year 8 level (mean effect size of 0.23). Comparative figures are not available for the assessments in 2001. Year 4 students whose predominant language at home was not English were more positive than their English language counterparts on some questions of the Social Studies Survey.
Summary of trend information
In total, across Chapters 3 to 7, 19 trend tasks have been included. Because there were just a few in each chapter, overall trends are summarised here. At year 4 level, averaged across 103 assessed components of 13 trend tasks, 2.1 percent more year 4 students succeeded in 2005 than in 2001. At year 8 level, averaged across 127 assessed components of 15 tend tasks, 1.9 percent more year 8 students succeeded in 2005 than in 2001. At both year levels, these results clearly indicate that there has been no performance decline across the four years, but are not strong enough to be seen as clear evidence of improvement.
In the previous report on social studies, evidence was reported of an average gain of 2.5 percent on trend tasks between 1997 and 2001 for year 4 students. Linked with the current trend results, this suggests a worthwhile improvement for year 4 students over the eight years between 1997 and 2005. For year 8 students, the previous social studies report presented evidence of an average decline of one percent between 1997 and 2001. Linked with the current trend results, this suggests no meaningful change in performance for year 8 students over the eight years between 1997 and 2007