Fw: [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

Thu Nov 16 16:44:01 EST 2006

Message
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Robert Hind 
To: Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List 
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

Yes I have a long memory and did teach VCE "IT" in it's first year. Not "Information Processing and Society" thank goodness. As you say "HSC Computer Science it certainly is not".

Sorry Royce, I would however query your definition of a "good exam". It depends on the purpose of the exam.

If you consider the present VCE exams, then yes they are intended to spread students out and rank them in order of performance to produce Uni entrance scores. "Norm referenced" assessment where you are interested in comparing the students with each other.

But if the exam is to determine the knowledge of road laws, eg the Learners' Permit test, then this is a test of whether the examinee knows the road laws or not, no ranking required, just that the examinee gets enough questions correct and perhaps a fairly easy exam.

On the other hand consider the testing of airline pilots. Same thing as the learners' permit test, ie set skills and knowledge required, ie "criterion referenced" for those who remember their work on assessment and evaluation, but the standard required is very high.

So there are different reasons for assessment and evaluation and therefore different types of tests/exams are needed.

Robert Hind (Semi-retired)
Ex Traralgon and Ashwood

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Royce Williams 
  To: Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List 
  Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 2:53 PM
  Subject: RE: [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

  actually .. a good exam must include questions that only a few will get other wise there is no discrimination between scores at the high end

  That is for any exam .. not just one that is used for Uni entrance. Ranking of students is important otherwise students have nothing to reward them for either effort or Ability.

  Also without asking hard questions the subject will turn into Information Processing and Society .. for those with long memories.

  HSC Computer Science it Certainly is not 

  Royce Williams 
  Round Square BoardWalk Co 
  "We keep your feet Dry" 

    -----Original Message-----
    From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Andrew Shortell
    Sent: Thursday, 16 November 2006 1:09 PM
    To: Year 12 Information Technology Systems Teachers' Mailing List
    Subject: RE: [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

    Hi Frank

    Past exams give you what the examiners have asked over the years at an algorithm level.

    All of the SACs are statistically moderated against the exam.

    The lack of depth specified in the study design gives the examiners incredible scope to ask at any level.

    Then consider how many students would answer it well.  

    Look carefully at the examiners reports over the last twelve years. Look especially at the success rate on the algorithm questions. Look at the questions concerned.

    Think carefully about the point of asking a question where only a few percent of students get above zero. The point of the exam is to spread students in to a long line using the filter of the knowledge learnt in this subject so that they can be given a study score and thus get put into a long line for uni entrance. 

    Cynical - yes , practical -yes 

    The practice exams with parameter passing - an attempt to lift the bar. ( I know, I wrote that algorithm) 

    Eventually we will get to that stage. But first we have to educate the teachers and there are teachers in this subject who are not confident teaching parameter passing, linked lists, stacks, queues, LIFO, FIFO, multi d arrays.  There is a lot of PD that needs to be done before we can ask questions at that depth in the exam.

    Meanwhile I teach all of those, make it interesting and for those students who are not up to it I make very sure that they can do a bit more than the minimum that we have seen on the exam. Their SAC results for u3o3 and u4o1 are not as good as the programmer students but programming itself only makes up a small part of those SACs. Most of the marks are in planning, documentation etc. The programmer students hate those aspects and often leave them out.

    So it evens up..

    (Off the soap box and stagger off to lunch. I hate getting up at 4 a.m. to mark papers but it is the only quiet time in the house)

    Andrew Shortell

    Braemar College

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    From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Frank Van Den Boom
    Sent: Thursday, 16 November 2006 10:29 AM
    To: is at edulists.com.au
    Subject: FW: [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

    I was a bit surprised to only get one response to the question below a couple of weeks ago. Does that mean that nobody else finds this difficult to judge?
    Imagine you were an experienced IT practioner and you came in to teach this course with no prior knowledge of it and you were trying to figure out what depth was required in programming. So you look at the following :

    1. Study design - very hard to know (see comments in original message) 

    2. 2006 IS exam - nothing beyond nested IF's - nothing involving arrays, records, files. One question with a loop was only concerned with identifying variable types, but not control or data structures.

    3. Previous exams - basic use of 1-dim array, basic looping

    3. VITTA practice exams - suggest you need to have a solid understanding of arrays, records, file processing and parameter passing. 

    4. Text books - cover algorithms for stacks, queues, linked lists etc

    At the end of the day, past exams to me are the only general indicator of the depth to cover. Is there a reason why the study design can't spell this out more clearly?

    Frank

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    From: is-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:is-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Frank Van Den Boom
    Sent: Wednesday, 25 October 2006 12:41 PM
    To: is at edulists.com.au
    Subject: [Year 12 Its] New IS study design query

    Today I started looking more closely at the revised study design to plan for next year. One of the things that struck me is that it is difficult to know what the minimum content requirements are in a number of areas. For example-data structures. I don't think it specifically mentions any particular data structure. U4O1 key knowledge includes "methods of organising files....serial, sequential, random" which implies the need to cover records. Arrays are not specifically referred to and while, it would be pretty dumb to omit them, are 1-dim arrays enough, or might exams expect ability to work with multi-dim arrays? What about sets, pointers....

    Another KK point --> 'Forms and uses of data structures to organise and manipulate data'. Which data structures?? What types of uses?? - all the oldies like sorting, linked lists, queues, binary searches etc are possible here.

    Now I know we have the flexibility to cover as much of this as we want to for the kids who are really into it, particularly for those who already have a reasonable programming foundation as they enter the course. But what I don't know is what the minimum requirement is. This becomes more important when most of your group have little to no programming experience.

    What do you think about this?

    Frank

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    http://www.vitta.org.au - VITTA Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association Inc _______________________________________________ 
    http://www.edulists.com.au IT Systems Mailing List kindly supported by 
    http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and 
    http://www.vitta.org.au - VITTA Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association Inc

    _______________________________________________ 
    http://www.edulists.com.au IT Systems Mailing List kindly supported by 
    http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and 
    http://www.vitta.org.au - VITTA Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association Inc 
  _______________________________________________ 
  http://www.edulists.com.au IT Systems Mailing List kindly supported by 
  http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and 
  http://www.vitta.org.au - VITTA Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association Inc 
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