[Jane Farquhar]

14/04/2016 at 3:58 pm

Anybody doing the language tutors Nat 5 Coursework?

[Peter Thoresen]

14/04/2016 at 7:42 pm

Hi Jane

I’ve used it this year – anything specific you’re not sure about?

[Jane Farquhar]

15/04/2016 at 11:03 am

to cut a long story short – have ended up at last minute with a Nat4/5 class and all their marking (courseworks and unit assessments) having last taught computing in 2007! So, really just having to get to grips very quickly with the new marking guidelines for this level and what they are actually being asked to do. It is probably staring me in the face, but what sort of things would you be looking for in the analysis of the problem for assumptions made?

Thanks for any help.

[Peter Thoresen]

15/04/2016 at 11:16 am

From various SQA meetings, if a pupil writes they have no assumptions, they get full credit for this part of the task.
However there are usually some assumptions that pupils should be able to identify, sometimes from later when they are designing or implementing.
The database will be two tables in a one-to-many relationship. This requires that Tutor ID and Student IDs are unique, otherwise they cannot be used as primary keys. Also, a tutor can have many students but a student can only have one tutor. More assumptions can be made about field sizes or ranges.
For the program, will it loop 7 times, ask for the number of students or keep looping until an “x” in entered for name? Is forename sufficient, or is surname also required? Are the names to be validated? Is there a maximum number of tickets?

[Jane Farquhar]

15/04/2016 at 11:25 am

Ah ok. It just seems to be a bit of the task that the pupils don’t really know what is being asked of them, and as I haven’t really been involved in teaching the new courses I just wanted to clarify what SQA were looking for. Thanks for your help.

[Jane Farquhar]

15/04/2016 at 12:45 pm

Another wee question. If a pupil has missed out some of the validations in their design (the restricted choice for language, and range for cost per lesson), and also missed them in their implementation, do they miss out on marks in both cases as they aren’t meeting specification. Or do they get the marks for implementing their design even if their design is incomplete. I know it is now meant to be a holistic mark and not that we deduct marks for bits missing. Aaarrgggh!

[Peter Thoresen]

15/04/2016 at 12:55 pm

They would already have lost marks for not including the validations in analysis and/or design steps.
The “detailed” marking scheme (page 7) requires candidate to “create the database structure with two tables to match their design”, so give full credit for this stage of the task.

[Jane Farquhar]

15/04/2016 at 1:05 pm

That’s what I thought, but just wanted to check.
So, if for the program a student has missed out the validation of the hours in the pseudocode, then also misses from program – lose marks in design but not implementation?

[Peter Thoresen]

15/04/2016 at 1:13 pm

The detailed marking scheme (page 9) requires that input of hours is validated. So this time they do lose marks – even if they are following their design.

Welcome to the clarity and consistency of the new way of marking. Make sure you are using pages 5-10 for your marking – and don’t be surprised when you find the bits that pupils are given marks for but not actually told to do it in their instructions.

[Jane Farquhar]

15/04/2016 at 1:59 pm

Nothing like making things simple. I always thought SQA were against deducting twice for the same thing. Not a fan of these new marking guidelines I have to say. I just marked a pupil who missed the validation of hours and the calculation of total hours, and doesn’t output all the information correctly (has a fancy design with list boxes etc). Feels really bad as he only gets 11/20 for program design and build, for what is a very well designed and implemented program, just doesn’t meet parts of specification. Big lesson there for him for when I have him in higher next year! (he still manages 70% overall!).

[Erik Stevenson]

04/05/2016 at 1:48 pm

I spoke to the principal verifier yesterday and he said pupils should not be double penalised for the same thing.