Non-exam assessment (NEA) guidance - AQA

1 AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX. A-level Computer Science (7517) Non-exam assessment (NEA) guidance (Version 3 November 2019) AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX. AQA A-level Computer Science - NEA guidance V3 (November 2019) Contents Introduction .. 3 1 Selecting and approaching a project .. 4 Selecting a project .. 4 Approaching the Project .. 5 2 The Project Report .. 6 Analysis (9 marks) .. 6 Documented design (12 marks).

2 8 Technical solution (42 marks) .. 9 Completeness of solution (15 marks) .. 10 Techniques used (27 marks) .. 10 Testing (8 marks) .. 12 Evaluation (4 marks) .. 13 3 Documentation requirements .. 14 Analysis .. 14 Documented design .. 15 Technical Solution .. 16 Testing .. 16 16 4 Applying the marking scheme .. 17 Analysis .. 17 Documented design .. 17 Technical Solution .. 17 Testing .. 18 18 5 Work for moderation .. 19 Sending your sample of work .. 19 Supporting information .. 19 Appendix A .. 20 Key changes from AQA A-level Computing Project (COMP4) .. 20 Appendix B .. 21 Is a project (7517/C) of A-level standard? .. 21 Appendix C .. 23 Example lists of objectives .. 23 Activity for defining objectives .. 24 AQA A-level Computer Science - NEA guidance V3 (November 2019) AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number 3644723).

3 Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX. 3 of 24 Introduction The Non-exam assessment (NEA) counts towards 20% of the A-level qualification. The NEA allows students to develop their practical skills in the context of solving a realistic problem or carrying out an investigation. The NEA is intended to be as much a learning experience as a method of assessment ; students have the opportunity to work independently on a problem of interest over an extended period, during which they can extend their programming skills and deepen their understanding of computer science. The most important skill that should be assessed through the NEA is a student's ability to create a programmed solution to a problem or investigation. This is recognised by allocating 42 of the 75 available marks to the technical solution and a lower proportion of marks for supporting documentation to reflect the expectation that reporting of the problem, its analysis, the design of solution or plan of an investigation and testing and evaluation will be concise.

4 It is recommended that approximately 50 hours of lesson time are allocated to the completion of NEA. This resource offers some advice on how to tackle the NEA and what to include in the documentation. You should also refer to the A-level Computer Science specification sections relating to NEA Systematic approach to problem solving Non-exam assessment the computing practical project o Marking Criteria 5 Scheme of assessment 6 Non-exam assessment administration For centres currently following the AQA Computing specification (2510), a summary of the most significant differences between the NEA for the new A-level Computer Science specification and the coursework (COMP4) for the outgoing A-level Computing specification is in Appendix A. AQA A-level Computer Science - NEA guidance V3 (November 2019) AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number 3644723).

5 Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX. 4 of 24 1 Selecting and approaching a project Selecting a project The project will take a significant amount of time to complete and contributes 20% to the overall A-level grade. It is important that a student selects an appropriate subject for the project that: can maintain their interest over a long time period is suitably challenging so that it will enable them to fulfil their learning potential will enable them to access the full mark range can be supported and assessed by the teacher. It is the student who must decide upon the project subject, but it is expected that the teacher should also be involved. Students can choose between: Solution to a problem The student selects a problem and develops a system to solve it.

6 Typically, the solution would be developed for a third party. There is no requirement for there to be an end user, but having one is likely to be useful. Examples of this type of project include: o a simulation, eg of a business or scientific nature, or a well-known problem such as Conway's Game of Life (see ) o a solution to data processing problem for a business, eg stock control, membership systems o the solution of an optimisation problem, eg production of a rota, shortest-path problems, route finding o a computer game with a dynamically created maze o an application of artificial intelligence o a control system, operated using a device such as an Arduino board o a website with dynamic content, driven by a database back-end o an app for a mobile phone or tablet to remotely control a server.

7 Investigation The student selects an area of the subject that they are interested in and conducts an investigation of this area, with the focus being on programming. For an investigation, the student would need a supervisor with some knowledge of the area being investigated. Examples of this type of project include: o machine learning algorithms o 3D graphics rendering o analysis of live data feeds, eg Twitter feeds o investigation into the use of neural networks, eg as a noughts and crosses player o exploring large datasets for correlations, eg the World Bank s datasets (see ), and creating useful visualisations of these correlations to answer interesting questions o scientific investigations, eg where an analytic solution is not possible. AQA A-level Computer Science - NEA guidance V3 (November 2019) AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number 3644723).

8 Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX. 5 of 24 For both types of project, the structure of the documentation required is essentially the same, with minor differences where necessary. In individual centres the problem chosen by a student to solve or investigate should be sufficiently different to that of other students to avoid the work of one student informing the work of another because they are working on the same problem or investigation. Teachers are required to record on the Candidate Record Form for each student that they have followed this guideline. If in any doubt on whether problems chosen by students have the potential to raise this issue, please contact your AQA advisor. It is expected that a task that is selected will be of A-level standard.

9 See Appendix B for examples of what this means, and how to deal with projects that are not of A-level standard. Selecting the subject for the project could be done at the end of the first year of the A-level or at the start of the second year. At this point, it may be that some of the techniques required to complete the project (eg SQL, some data structures) have not been taught, so the teacher will need to ensure that the project is realistically achievable. Approaching the Project It is not expected that a student will follow any particular formal software engineering methodology, such as the waterfall model, when working on their project. The different sections of the project report indicate the order that work should be presented for marking, not the order that it must be completed in.

10 Research Student s need to research the problem they are going to tackle at the start of the project, which will involve some analysis. It is important that at this stage a well-defined set of measurable objectives are written so that the student and teacher have a common understanding of what the student hopes to achieve and so that the student can gauge their progress. Critical Path Once a student has a thorough understanding of the problem, they should be encouraged to identify what the critical path to be followed to produce a solution is, ie what are the key tasks that need to be completed to produce a solution. A student should be encouraged to focus on achieving these before working on more ancillary aspects of the problem such as a user registration and login system. Designing It is unlikely to be a good idea for a student to try to design all aspects of a solution before starting to code it.