Participants and Procedure
The data reported in this paper comes from Year 7 and Year 8 students from four
secondary schools in Melbourne, representing a range of socio-economic backgrounds.
The testing took place in Term 2 of 2008; at this time, all Year 7 students from the four
schools were tested and all Year 8 students at three schools.
While all students in a year level were involved in testing, only students who returned
consent forms (57% overall) are included in this analysis. The normal classroom teacher
took their complete class into a computer laboratory for the duration of a normal lesson for
the purposes of the testing. These 2 items (with identifier codes 498 and 502) were offered
amongst a large set of test items. Three different test versions were provided to reduce the
opportunity for students to copy from those around them.
For ease of discussion, students who did not fully complete these two items are not
reported below. Hence, the following analysis is based on 367 students who provided all 6
responses to the two items of interest: Year 7 (n=228) and Year 8 (n=139).