Curriculum Insights and Progress Study: Illustration - How do the ways in which students critique evidence progress across Years 3, 6 and 8? Publications
Publication Details
This document is one in a collection of illustrations of progression for teachers developed through the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study. They are designed to support teachers to better understand the growing complexity of students’ responses as they progress through the primary years and can help deepen teachers’ understanding of emerging and developing science thinking and practices of students.
Author(s): The Educational Assessment Research Unit (EARU) at the University of Otago, and the New Zealand Council for Educational research (NZCER). Report for the Ministry of Education.
Date Published: May 2026
Curriculum context
The Science learning area assessments were administered in Term 3 of 2024. In 2024, the New Zealand Curriculum (2007) remained in place for science. As such, it provided the basis for the Curriculum Insights science learning area study.
About the assessment
Four different assessment tasks have been used in this illustration to show what students of different ages were able to do when critiquing evidence. The first two involved multi-choice questions that, along with science, also required reading and
mathematics skill.
Purpose
These illustrations support teachers to explore the following question:
How can students in Years 3, 6 and 8 use their growing science knowledge, practices and thinking skills to critique evidence in science contexts?
More information is available on the website of the Curriculum Insights and Progress Study.
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