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Assessment of Achievement Programme:
First Survey of Social Subjects Enquiry Skills 2002:
Summary

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1 Survey overview

The 2002 Social Subjects (Enquiry Skills) Survey was the first survey to be carried out in this area of the 5-14 curriculum within the Assessment of Achievement Programme (AAP), and also the first subject survey to incorporate the assessment of Core Skills. The three skills strands from the Social Subjects guidelines assessed in the survey are Preparing for tasks, Carrying out tasks and Reporting on tasks.

Written tasks covered all three social subjects and involved answering questions based on different kinds of sources. Attainment for Carrying out tasks was also assessed through practical activities, evaluated by visiting field officers.

Some of the teachers and pupils involved also completed questionnaires about their experience of teaching and learning in the social subjects.

Almost 10,000 pupils in just under 600 mainstream schools across Scotland took part. The stages assessed were P3, P5, P7 and S2. Testing took place in May and June 2002.

2 Overall performance - Social Subjects (Enquiry Skills) attainment on written tasks

Results overall were good for P3 and P5 but less so for P7 and S2. Results for P7 and S2 are similar to the results reported for the AAP English language survey of 2001.

P3 and P5

• Three-quarters of P3 pupils were secure at Level A, and just under half were also secure at Level B (the level expected for P4).
• Just over three-quarters of P5 pupils were secure at Level B and just under 40% were also secure at Level C (the level expected for P6).
• Only around 10% of pupils at P3 and P5 scored fewer than half marks at Levels A and B, the lower of the two levels tested at these stages.

P7 and S2

• Just over 70% of P7 and just over 60% of S2 demonstrated at least basic skills at their expected levels (Level D, Level E), scoring more than half of the available marks. However, fewer than half of P7 and fewer than 40% of S2 pupils were reported as secure at these levels.
• 16% of P7 and 13% of S2 demonstrated considerable strengths at Levels D and E respectively, scoring 80% or more of the available marks.
• Around 10% of pupils at P7 scored fewer than half marks at Level C, the lower of the two levels tested and the level below that expected at P7. At S2, the proportion showing this low attainment doubled, with 20% of pupils scoring fewer than half marks at Level D, the level below their expected Level.

Performance on practical tasks (one-to-one interviews, 'Preparing for tasks')

A series of relevant questions were put to the pupil as they studied stimulus photographs. The pupils' responses were judged by the interviewers as 'confident', 'with prompting', 'minimal' or 'inadequate/incorrect'.

• The proportion of pupils answering 'confidently' in Preparing for tasks increased with increasing age: from a quarter of the pupils in P3 who showed such strengths to just over half of the pupils in S2.
• Stage progression appeared most marked between P3 and P5: 23% and 39% respectively answered 'confidently'.

Performance on practical tasks (video and reference tasks, 'Carrying out tasks')

P3 and P5 pupils attempted the same video tasks, as did P7 and S2. Tasks involved watching a video and answering written questions.

• Two-thirds of P3 pupils and three-quarters of P5 pupils demonstrated at least basic skills on their video tasks, and 14% and 36% respectively showed considerable strengths on the same tasks, showing a clear progression from P3 to P5.
• Similarly, around 70% of P7 and around 90% of S2 demonstrated at least basic skills on their shared video tasks and around 30% of P7 and 50% of S2 showed considerable strengths on their tasks. Again these results show a clear progression between the two stages.
• For the reference skills activities the findings indicate that pupils' reference skills were already fairly well established even by P3 and that improvement from P7 to S2 was marginal.
• At all stages pupils were more competent in the reference skills tasks using contents lists than when they were when using indexes and glossaries.

Core Skills attainment

Communication (Reading)

Reading was an important part of the written tasks. Pupils produced similar performances when tackling test items requiring them to extract and use information from texts as they did when tackling items based on other types of information source. (See section above on overall attainment on written tasks).

Communication (Writing)

Pupils at P5, P7 and S2 tackled a more extended piece of writing as part of the written assessment.

• Proportions of pupils attaining relevant levels at P5 and P7 were similar. At P5, 56% of pupils' writing was rated as being at Level B or above, and 27% at Level C or above. At P7, 57% of the writing was rated as being at Level C or above, and 21% at Level D or above. At P5, around 10% of pupils' writing was rated as being below Level A. Similarly, at P7 around 10% of the writing was rated as at or below Level A. There is thus clear evidence of progression in level attainment in writing for pupils between P5 and P7.
• At S2, only around 30% of the writing was rated as Level D or above, and around 10% was rated as Level E, the target level for most pupils at this stage. 45% of the writing was rated as at or below Level B, with 21 % at or below Level A, a rather higher proportion of very low attainment than at P5 and P7.

Slightly higher proportions of pupils in S2 showed very low or very high attainment than pupils in P7.

Numeracy

On a relatively small number of test items demanding the application of computation skills, 50%-75% of the sampled pupils on average answered the questions successfully.

Problem solving

• In group activities, the majority of pupils at all stages showed some evidence of Problem solving ability. 'Reviewing and reflecting on progress' showed lower ratings than other aspects of Problem solving
• The findings show no difference in problem-solving skills of pupils at P5, P7 and S2, or in the pupils' abilities to evaluate their own and their group's work. The results indicate a significant improvement in performance between P3 and P5, the skills of P3 pupils being significantly less well developed.
• More pupils in P7 indicated 'clear evidence' of the various observed skills than did pupils in S2 (57% compared to 48% respectively).

Working with others

Observations during the group tasks and an interview with a group member after completion of the task were used to assess Working with others.

• Pupils showed a significant improvement between the P3 and P5 stages in positive discussion strategies (26% in P3 compared with 43% in P5 showing 'clear evidence'); there was no difference between P7 and S2 (around half showing 'clear evidence' at each stage).
• Proportionally fewer P3 pupils were rated as having given 'full responses' in their evaluations of their group's work than pupils at the other stages.

ICT skills

Three different ICT tasks were used at P7 and S2.

• Pupils at both stages did relatively well on the ICT tasks, given that they were using laptop computers that they were not used to working with in the normal course of events.
• Proportionally more of the S2 pupils compared with the P7 pupils were able to complete the tasks unaided.
• Pupils at both stages found chart creation within spreadsheets a more challenging activity than editing text, adding information to spreadsheet tables or using web searches.

Gender differences

• There were no overall statistically significant differences in attainment on either written or practical tasks. However, girls did tend to produce better performances than boys on most of the individual written tasks. There was clear evidence in the data of topic effects.
• At P7 and S2, there was a tendency for proportionally more of the boys than the girls to answer 'confidently' in one-to-one interviews.
• Only at S2 was there any evidence of a gender effect in reference tasks, with the girls producing a better overall performance than the boys.
• Gender differences were evident in Core Skills writing. Among pupils in P5, fewer girls than boys were judged to have produced work below level A. For pupils in P7, significantly more girls than boys were judged to have produced writing at level D. In S2, the girls produced work at a higher level than the boys, with significantly fewer girls having produced work at Level A or below and significantly more girls having produced work at Level E.

3 Pupils' learning circumstances and views about their learning

Almost 800 P7 pupils in 50 schools and over 600 S2 pupils in 42 schools completed a questionnaire that explored various aspects of their subject learning experience both inside and outside school.

• According to pupils' reports, social subjects lessons (environmental studies at P7, and geography, history, modern studies or social subjects at S2) were more content-based than enquiry-based, but they were also very interactive, with a high level of questioning and answering, all pupils being given opportunities to participate, and pupils typically being asked to explain their answers to questions.
• Teachers usually gave help when needed. Teachers expected pupils to work hard, and the pupils claimed that they found this easy to do in lessons.
• The majority of pupils wanted to do well in the subject, and worked hard on their topics and investigations, which they found interesting in general. Pupils were more evenly divided on whether they looked forward to lessons and enjoyed reading books about the subject.
• Most pupils, and their families, considered the subject important for later learning in other subjects and for jobs. While the pupils' job aspirations were many and varied, they remained heavily gender typed.
• The majority of the pupils found the subject easy, were happy with the pace of work, were rarely left behind, and rarely found it difficult to catch up if they missed a lesson.
• Most pupils, and higher proportions at S2 than at P7, agreed that they were often or always given teacher feedback on progress in the form of levels, grades or test scores, and short tests were common.
• Corrected work generally showed pupils where they had gone wrong, and pupils were typically shown by the teacher how to improve their work. However, a relatively low proportion of pupils agreed that their teacher involved them in planning their next steps in learning.
• Whole class teaching predominated at both stages, and the most frequent individual activities were writing in a jotter or file, working quietly alone, completing worksheets and reading text books and reference books.
• Using computers in class, using tools and instruments in investigations, handling objects and artefacts, working in the school grounds and visiting places outside school were less common at both stages, but particularly at S2, by which time some of these activities were rare.
• On their own reports, the S2 pupils had more homework (all subjects) than did the P7 pupils, spending an average of 2.6 hours on homework compared with P7's 1.4 hours. High proportions of pupils at both stages had a quiet place to study at home, had home access to a computer and the internet, and had a calculator and dictionary available to them at home.
• As far as family activities are concerned, the most common family pastimes were watching TV and videos and listening to music. Other popular family activities were talking about free time activities, talking about films and TV programmes, talking about school work and progress, and playing sport.
• Reading or talking about books were much less popular activities, as were cultural outings of various types.
• While there were clear gender differences in job aspirations, there were no differences between boys and girls in terms of their reports on their social subjects learning, nor in general in access to important learning resources at home, particularly a quiet place to study and access to a computer and the internet.
• There were some gender differences in engagement in family activities, with boys tending less often than girls to have cultural outings with their adult family members or to read or talk about books with them, but more often to play sport with them.

4 Teachers' reports on social subjects in schools

• According to primary head teachers and secondary principal teachers, the majority of programmes of work at P7 and at S2 were currently undergoing revision, whatever their year of introduction - and some had been very recently introduced.
• Programmes generally had several bases, the most common of which were the school's own materials and the national 5-14 guidelines, both mentioned by a large majority of the schools at both stages. Standard Grade arrangements were mentioned for about a quarter of the S2 programmes.
• For reporting pupil progress to parents, almost all schools at both stages relied on teachers' comments, followed by 5-14 levels. At S2, marks and grades for effort were as popular as 5-14 levels, while use of a comments bank was the third most popular approach at P7.
• When asked to rate various aspects with regard to their P7 or S2 pupils, the senior teachers gave the most positive ratings to six aspects - pupil attendance at classes, pupil behaviour in classes, computer access for teachers, computer access for pupils, internet access for teachers and internet access for pupil - and the least positive ratings to four aspects - school/departmental accommodation, availability of resources for subject teaching and learning, availability of learning support or subject enrichment, and parental support for learning. The P7 ratings tended to be more positive than the S2 ratings, with the exception of parental support for learning where both teacher groups were equally unimpressed.
• 'Teachers' expectations of pupil achievement' was more highly rated than 'Teacher morale' by both groups. 'Pupil motivation to learn' at S2 was even less positively rated than teacher morale by the secondary principal teachers, but at P7 was rated as positively as teachers' expectations of pupil achievement by the primary head teachers.
• The P7 teachers were predominately female, while their S2 colleagues were more evenly gender representative. Among the S2 teachers, geographers and historians predominated, at one-third of the total each; the remaining teachers were graduates in a variety of other social subjects or in languages. The majority of geography and history graduates were teaching their degree subject at S2, all the language graduates were teaching history, while graduates with a variety of social subjects degrees were teaching social subjects or modern studies.
• Years of teaching experience and years in post varied widely in both groups from a year or two to decades. As a group, the S2 teachers tended to have slightly more teaching experience than the P7 teachers but slightly less time in their current posts.
• A substantial minority of teachers in both groups had not had any professional development during the previous two years, while among those that had benefited from such experience the median duration was a matter of days. However, a substantial minority of the teachers in both groups claimed to meet at least weekly with colleagues to discuss subject issues.
• The majority at both stages gave positive ratings to their pupils' motivation to learn, as had their head teachers and principal teachers.
• The most frequent learning activities for pupils in their classrooms were being taught as a whole class and writing in their jotters or files. The P7 teachers made greater use of the national 5-14 guidelines in their lessons than did the S2 teachers, while the latter made greater use than the P7 teachers of their schools' own materials.
• The teachers' ratings of their preparedness to teach each of the various topics and enquiry skills in social subjects and to develop informed attitudes in their pupils, their ratings of how well resourced they were in each case, and their ratings of the extent to which they had covered each aspect in the current session were all highly inter-correlated. In general the P7 teachers gave higher ratings than the S2 teachers to most aspects.
• Perhaps the most interesting finding is that for all outcomes except People in the past (generally taught by history graduates) a substantial minority of the S2 teachers responded 'not at all well' for preparedness, resourcing and coverage, the proportion being highest for P eople in society (taught by graduates with a variety of degree subjects).