Whodathunkit! Yet another poorly researched task spat out by the SQA with no piloting or consideration as to what was actually involved in completing it.
I know the person involved in creating these tasks looks in on CompEdNet, and I know from word-of-mouth that a lot of the people involved in creating assessments, coursework tasks and exam papers for CfE Computing Science are not entirely happy with the oversight of their work, but, really – it is becoming a standard joke now. Expecting pupils to research specifications of closely guarded systems, information about which will be privy to the organisations and their contractors only is plain mental.
Computing Science assessments across the board are riddled with these issues, and it is too often the case that pupils are being left to make assumptions and it comes down to pure luck whether or not their assumptions are the same as the ones the person making up the task had in mind. It seems that mind-reading is the skill being assessed!
A dose of reality for these people please, followed by a complete re-write of these tasks by a group of competent teachers in the field rather than the job being left to one individual to create and the work ‘reviewed’ by a bunch of well paid politically motivated people who have no clue about the subject matter. Can the new tasks also be piloted by a group of students that form the target audience before general release?
Not much to ask!
Scottish government keeps repeating that CfE has received ‘unprecedented support’ – not a lie! Unprecedented means unlike what went before which is absolutely true – the support for CfE has been unlike Standard Grade and Higher Still where courses and assessments were phased and piloted, and rewrites were undertaken within the first 2 years to remove the errors. The CfE support sets a precedent in its inadequacy.
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