Is the persuasive task more difficult than the narrative task?
The persuasive task may be more or less difficult than the narrative task, depending on the skill levels of the group of students assessed. Psychometricians take this into account when they analyse the data. This data analysis process, known as equating, enables students’ writing abilities to be placed on the same Writing scale, regardless of the type of writing assessed from year to year. This equating process occurs with every NAPLAN test. Tests may vary in difficulty from year to year, but students’ results are reported comparably from year to year because equating takes the relative difficulties of different tests in the same domain into account.
