Assessment and reporting in Design and Technology
Assessment for Design and Technology provides information to support learning and reporting of performance. Find out about assessment requirements and the structure of the HSC exam.
School-based assessment requirements
Schools are required to develop an assessment program for each Year 11 and Year 12 course. NESA provides information about the responsibilities of schools in developing assessment programs in course-specific assessment and reporting requirements and in the Assessment Certification Examination (ACE) rules and requirements.
Schools are required to submit to NESA a grade for each student based on their achievement at the end of the course.
Teachers use professional, on-balance judgement to allocate grades based on the Common Grade Scale for Preliminary courses.
Teachers consider all available assessment information, including formal and informal assessment, to determine the grade that best matches each student’s achievement at the end of the course.
See ACE (Assessment, Certification and Examination rules and requirements) for further information.
Assessment programs must reflect course components and weightings
The course components and component weightings for Year 11 are mandatory.
| Course component | Weighting |
|---|---|
| Knowledge and understanding of course content | 40% |
| Knowledge and skills in designing, managing, producing and evaluating design projects | 60% |
Schools may determine specific elements of their assessment program
Schools have authority to determine the number, type of task and the weighting allocated to an assessment task. Schools may also follow the sample assessment programs provided by NESA.
Sample assessment program
NESA’s sample Year 11 formal school-based assessment program for Design and Technology includes:
- 3 assessment tasks, including:
- a formal written exam.
The recommended weighting for any individual task is 20% to 40%.
NESA requires schools to submit a school-based assessment mark for each Year 12 candidate in a course. Formal school-based assessment tasks should reflect the syllabus outcomes and content. The mark submitted by the school provides a summation of each student’s achievement measured at several points throughout the course.
A school’s program of school-based assessment includes both mandatory and non-mandatory elements.
See ACE (Assessment, Certification and Examination rules and requirements) for further information.
Assessment programs must reflect course components and weightings
The course components and component weightings for Year 12 are mandatory.
| Course component | Weighting |
|---|---|
| Knowledge and understanding of course content | 40% |
| Knowledge and skills in designing, managing, producing and evaluating a major design project | 60% |
Schools may determine specific elements of their assessment program
Schools have authority to determine the number, type of task and the weighting allocated to an assessment task. Schools may follow the sample assessment programs provided by NESA.
Sample assessment program
NESA’s sample Year 12 formal school-based assessment program for Design and Technology includes:
- 4 assessment tasks, including:
- a minimum weighting for an individual task of 10%
- a maximum weighting for an individual task of 40%
- one task that is a formal written exam with a maximum weighting of 30%
- one task that is a case study of an innovation with a weighting of 20%.
Formal written exam task
This task may assess a broad range of course content and outcomes. Schools may choose to replicate the timing and structure of the HSC exam.
If a school includes the development of the externally assessed Major Design Project in conjunction with the written paper, the combined weighting of the tasks should not exceed 30%.
Innovation Case Study
The case study involves the critical analysis of an innovation. By conducting a detailed case study of an innovation, students will be able to identify the factors underlying the success of the innovation; analyse ethical issues in relation to the innovation; and discuss the impact of the innovation on Australian society.
Major Design Project
Schools are reminded that the use of the external marking criteria to assess HSC project work at school is not appropriate.
The progress of the Major Design Project should be assessed in other valid ways, such as oral presentations or reports on progress linked to other syllabus outcomes.
The following examples provide two possible approaches for formal assessment of the Major Design project.
Example 1: Project Proposal – Presentation
A presentation following the completion of the design and planning, assesses a student’s knowledge, understanding and skills at a key point in time.
A presentation may require students to include:
- exploration of the need
- development of ideas including sketching, drawings and/or visual communication
- appropriate design development including modelling and testing
- planning, including timelines.
Example 2: Project Development and Realisation – Report
A report after the completion of substantial aspects of the development and production of the Major Design Project.
A report may require students to:
- provide evidence of creativity
- demonstrate how consideration of design factors have contributed to the development of the major design project
- provide evidence of how thorough research and planning have contributed to the realisation of the major design project.
HSC exam specifications
The external HSC exam measures student achievement in a range of syllabus outcomes.
The external exam and its marking relate to the syllabus by:
- providing clear links to syllabus outcomes
- enabling students to demonstrate the levels of achievement outlined in the performance band descriptions
- applying marking guidelines based on criteria that relate to the quality of the response
- aligning performance in the exam each year to the standards established for the course.
Exam questions may require candidates to integrate knowledge, understanding and skills developed through studying the course.
The exam will consist of a written paper worth 40 marks and a Major Design Project worth 60 marks.
Written Paper (40 marks)
Time allowed: 1 hour and 30 minutes plus 5 minutes reading time. The paper will consist of three sections.
Section I (10 marks)
- There will be objective response questions to the value of 10 marks.
Section II (15 marks)
- There will be short-answer questions to the value of 15 marks.
- Questions may contain parts.
- There will be approximately four items in total.
- At least one item will be worth from 4 to 6 marks.
Section III (15 marks)
- There will be one extended response question.
- The question will have an expected length of response of around four pages of an exam writing booklet (approximately 600 words) in total.
Major Design Project (60 marks)
The Major Design Project consists of an individual product, system or environment, and a folio. The folio documents the proposal, the project management, the development and realisation, and the project evaluation.
Requirements for the Major Design Project
Each candidate must undertake and present, on an individual basis, a Major Design Project for submission for the Higher School Certificate exam. The Major Design Project includes the practical hands-on activity of carrying the project through to realisation and the documentation, in a design folio, of all the steps involved in this process.
The Major Design Project involves students selecting and applying appropriate design, production and evaluation skills to a product, system or environment which satisfies an identified need or opportunity. Students have developed a wide range of skills and knowledge in the Preliminary course, and in the HSC course are able to select and use those skills and knowledge appropriate to their selected project.
The purpose of the folio is to document the project proposal, management, development, realisation and evaluation of the Major Design Project. Students need to select appropriate samples of work that reflect the processes they have followed and that provide information showing how they have met the Major Design Project exam criteria.
The folio will be limited to 80 written A4 pages OR 40 written A3 pages printed on ONE side only. Note that the page limit includes the title page, index, bibliography, design ideas, concept sketches and detailed drawings, as well as information presented on displays or noticeboards.
Students who need to use a combination of A3 and A4 pages in their folios to display their work to best effect in their folios must keep to the overall page limit, using 1 x A3 page = 2 x A4 pages as a guide.
Other media-based or multimedia-based materials in a student’s folio should not exceed six minutes viewing time in total.
- The folio should be presented in an A4 or A3 folder.
- A clear and easily read font equivalent in size 12 – point Times New Roman should be used for text.
- Folio pages should be numbered.
The physical size of the Major Design Project needs to be carefully considered. Teachers and students should be mindful of:
- the cost of materials
- the complexity and physical size of projects.
High marks are regularly achieved by students who have projects that are of modest cost, use minimal materials and do not require an excessive student time commitment.
Depending on the type of project, prototypes, models and/or results of testing the project or its component parts may be submitted in addition to the folio parameters above. These should be relevant to the project and students will need to indicate their purpose and provide clear evidence of further action as a result of prototypes, models and/or testing. Simple labelling of these items is not included within the folio page limit.
Graphics projects that are paper-based, eg architectural drawings, magazines, posters or comic books, or are multimedia based, eg web pages or animations, are not included in the folio page limit as these are the products, not the project folios.
Development of the Major Design Project may commence from the beginning of the HSC course.
Schools must have procedures in place that will allow effective supervision of the development of students’ Major Design Projects. This is particularly the case where work is done away from school.
It is intended that the syllabus content is taught through the development of the submitted project at school under the supervision of the class teacher.
Projects will only be marked away from school sites in exceptional circumstances and only with the express permission of NESA before the project is started during the first term of the course. Schools must be confident that effective supervision and sufficient documentation of this work is possible before giving consent for students to begin work on their Major Design Project.
Students will be required to certify that the Major Design Project is their own original work, and that any material drawn from other sources and any outside assistance is acknowledged in the Practical Projects Certification/Declaration Form. Group projects are not permitted.
Teachers must certify that the work has been completed under their supervision, and that the rules and procedures detailed here have been followed.
The principal must be able to endorse the teacher’s declaration that the work:
- has been done under the teacher’s supervision at school or at other premises as documented in the Practical Project: Record of Student’s Progress
- is the student’s own work consistent with earlier drafts and other examples of the student’s work
- was completed by the due date.
On occasions it may be necessary for some minor aspect of the Major Design Project to be undertaken by some other person or agency. In such cases, the contribution of the outside agent/organisation must be documented in the management folio and indicated on the project coversheet.
Students will not be given credit for actual work completed by others. Justification for, and of, such work will be recognised in the marking process.
The teacher must keep a brief written record of each student’s progress throughout the Major Design Project. This should not be submitted with the project, but may be requested in exceptional circumstances where the examiners require further information. This record should be retained by the school together with assessment records. A Practical Project: Record of Student’s Progress is available to download from Schools Online.
Some students with disability may require adjustments to undertake the Major Project on the same basis as students without disability. This could include adjustments to access the folio, such as a scaffold, or adjustments to access tools and resources, such as the use of assistive technology or physical assistance.
Adjustments in response to a disability are not considered ‘outside assistance’ and do not need to be recorded on supporting documentation that is submitted to NESA, including the project coversheet. Schools should follow school and sector protocols for recording adjustments. Where a student with disability has been provided with outside assistance in addition to an adjustment, the outside assistance must be recorded in the student’s folio, as outlined above.
Major Design Project exam criteria
Project proposal and management
| Criteria | Marks |
|---|---|
| 15 |
Project development and realisation
| Criteria | Marks |
|---|---|
| 35 |
Evaluation
| Criteria | Marks |
|---|---|
| 10 |