[Year 12 SofDev] Data types in the new study design

[Mark]

[Apologies for the crossposts, but this is relevant (but maybe not
interesting) to all 3 lists.]

Hi, unwashed masses,

I've just noticed an interesting change in the new study design.

In the current study design there is a rather awkward and messy
prescription of which data types are relevant to each unit of study:

yr 11: integer, floating point, character, string
ITA:   text (string), number, date/time, Boolean (true/false)
SD:    integer, floating point, Boolean, character, string

In the new study design there is no mandated list of data types for each
area of study; there is just the glossary entry:

"*Data types are the particular forms that an item of data can take
including numeric, character and Boolean, and are characterised by the kind
of operations that can be performed on it. *
*Depending on the software being used, these fundamental types can be
divided into more specific types, for example integer and floating point
are numeric*
*types. *
*More sophisticated types can be derived from them, for example a string of*
*characters or a date type and their names may vary, such as text data type
versus string data type.*"

It's refreshing to remove yet one more more fiddly and artificial
distinction that had to be memorised when teaching different units.

It's akin to recent sensible study design innovations such as standardising
the 3 different versions of the SDLC into a common PSM.
And, in the new design, changing 'ease of use' from an efficiency criterion
to an effectiveness criterion, where it belongs.

And there have been other welcome changes such as
- fixing the number of marks in the SD exam at 100
- expecting SD kids to write pseudocode.

Well, *I* thought it was interesting.  Hmphh.

Cheers
Mark

-- 

*I married an amplifier, but only because I hated to turn it down.*

Mark Kelly


http://vceit.com
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