Development and pre-testing of statutory test materials in science for 11 year-olds in 2008-2011

Client: National Assessment Agency | NFER Contact: Emily Jones

This project will continue the development of the key stage (KS) 2 statutory science materials until 2011. The test is required to provide a valid and reliable assessment of the National Curriculum for Science (levels 2-5). In order to do this, all four areas of the Programme of Study must be covered at a variety of levels, with a greater emphasis on scientific enquiry skills. The tests must also maintain standards across the years.

Purpose and aims

The focus of the project is to develop new materials to use in the assessment of science for pupils at the end of KS 2. The assessments must be inclusive and accessible for the majority of pupils in year 6 with a wide variety of contexts to ensure motivation and interest and also to promote best practice as the materials can be used as a resource by teachers.

Research design and methods

Questions will be written initially by the team at NFER and other experienced writers and teachers. The appropriateness, accessibility, reliability and validity of the questions and draft papers will be determined by pre-testing on year 6 pupils at a similar time to the live tests.

The first pre-test will take place at the end of April or start of May two years before the tests are due to go live. This will be an item trial where the performance of each item is analysed providing information which can be used to select questions for the draft papers. At the second pre-test, the draft, reserve and anchor papers will be trialled. The data helps to equate the draft and reserve papers to previous years, allowing draft cut scores to be set.

Impact and outcomes

The project aims to produce:

• high quality and reliable tests in science which provide a good coverage of the KS2 programme of study at levels 3-5
• mark schemes that are easy to apply and allow reliable marking
• advice produced in conjunction with Special Educational Needs (SEN) advice on the placement of draft cut scores.

Time scale: March 2006 - June 2011

NFER Project Code: SKY