Question 2

In Q2, students were asked to edit the format of information in a Word document according to the 6 requirements mentioned in Q2. The requirements of Q2 were:

1. Add Susan’s name in the header (0.5 mark) and align it to the right (0.5 mark).

2. Bold (0.5 mark) and underline (0.5 mark) the title.

3. Justify the paragraph (0.5 mark) and change the color of the text into blue (0.5 mark).

4. Insert a related image (1 mark).

5. Add bullet points to the list of items (1 mark).

6. Add (0.5 mark) and center page no. in the footer (0.5 mark).

Students were also asked to make some changes to enhance the presentation with their own ideas.

The score of this question was counted by two IL dimensions. They were “manage” and “create”.

For “manage”, there were two tasks to be counted. The first task was to ask students to edit the format of information according to requirements of the question (6 marks). The second task was to ask students to save the document in a proper folder (1 mark). For “create”, students were asked to use their own ideas to edit the format of the information (3 marks).

Q2 Manage (6 marks)

For the first task of “manage”, students were asked to edit the format of information according to the requirements of the question. In general, the performance of students was average only. On average, students could only attain some what between basic and proficient levels. Most students were not familiar with the functions of “header”, “footer”, “paragraph alignment” and “bullet items” in Microsoft Word (MS Word); therefore, they could not reach a higher level for this task.

Table 5.11 showed the percentage distribution of students of different school types for each score.

For primary school students, 39.93% of them got no mark. 27.58% of the students got 0.5 to 2 marks. 30.26% of the students got 2.5 to 4 marks (proficient level) and only 2.23% of the students

got 4.5 to 6 marks (advanced level) in this task. In other words, only 32.49% of the students could reach the proficient level or above. Over 60% (67.51%) of the students could only reach the basic level or below. The standard deviation was high (1.42).

For secondary school students, the majority of the score distribution was at proficient level. The mean score was 2.85 and over 50% of the students got 2.5 to 4 marks. 25.83% out of these 51.34%

of the students got 3.5 marks. Basically, there were four functions of MS Word where students commonly lost marks. They were “header”, “footer”, “paragraph alignment” and “bullet items”.

Besides, 18% of the students reached the advanced level and got 4.5 to 6 marks. 69.34% of the students reached at least the proficient level (2.50 marks or above). It showed that the performance of the secondary school students in this question was good. However, the standard deviation was high (1.62). Besides, 15.57% of the students got 0.5 to 2 marks whereas 15.07% of them got no mark.

For special school students, their performance in this task had two extremes. 59.09% of the students got no mark in this task. 4.55% of them got 0.5 to 2 marks. 22.69% of the students got 2.5 to 4 marks whereas 13.64% of them got 4.5 to 6 marks. 36.33% of the students could reach at least the proficient level. The mean score was 1.61 which was higher than that of the primary school students. Besides, the standard deviation was 2.16 which was relatively high when compared with those of the primary and secondary school students.

Table 5.11 Percentage distribution of students of different school types for each score of Q2 (Manage-advanced) of Technical PA

Score Primary (%) Secondary (%) Special (%) IL Competence Level

0.00 39.93 39.93 15.07 15.07 59.09 59.09 Novice

0.50 4.02 1.24 0.00

1.00 7.92 2.21 0.00

1.50 8.57 4.47 0.00

2.00 7.07

27.58

7.65

15.57

4.55

4.55 Basic

2.50 10.52 9.51 0.00

3.00 6.83 8.39 9.09

3.50 10.54 25.83 13.6

4.00 2.37

30.26

7.61

51.34

0.00

22.69 Proficient

4.50 1.65 6.98 0.00

5.00 0.48 4.42 0.00

5.50 0.10 4.75 9.09

6.00 0.00

2.23

1.85

18.00

4.55

13.64 Advanced

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00

Mean 1.40 2.85 1.61

(SD) (1.42) (1.62) (2.16)

N 830 823 22

N.B. - N listed in the table is the unweighted number of students.

- “Score (%)”, “Mean Score” and “SD” of both primary and secondary schools are weighted statistics.

- Figures may not sum to 100 percent because of rounding.

Here are some examples of students’ answers in Q2 (Manage) (6 marks).

Advanced level

(Student: 204038)

(Student: 138035)

Proficient level

(Student: 234015)

(Student: 120021)

Basic level

(Student: 232017)

(Student: 138019)

Novice level

(Student: 232034)

Q2 Manage (1 mark)

The second task of “manage” in Q2 was to ask students to save the document in a proper folder. It was found that most students could handle this task well.

Table 5.12 Percentage distribution of students of different school types for each score of Q2 (Manage-basic) of Technical PA

Score (%) School Type N

0.00 1.00

Total (%) Mean Score (SD)

Primary 830 30.18 69.82 100.00 0.70 (0.46)

Secondary 823 12.73 87.27 100.00 0.87 (0.33)

Special 22 31.82 68.18 100.00 0.68 (0.48)

N.B. - N listed in the table is the unweighted number of students.

- “Score (%)”, “Mean Score” and “SD” of both primary and secondary schools are weighted statistics.

- Figures may not sum to 100 percent because of rounding.

Students’ performances in this task across different school types were quite similar. It was no surprise that the performance of the secondary school students in this task was slightly better than those of the primary and special school students. The mean score of the secondary school students was 0.87 and 87.27% of them got full marks in this task. On the other hand, the performance of the primary and special school students was not bad. The mean scores of the primary and special school students were 0.70 and 0.68 respectively. Besides, 69.82% of the primary school students and 68.18% of the special school students got full marks in this task.

Q2 Create (3 marks)

For “create” in this question, students were asked to use their own ideas to edit the format of information in order to enhance the presentation of information. For this task, the overall performance was bad. Nearly 90% of the primary, secondary and special school students got 0 mark in this task. No student could get 3 marks (i.e. reached the proficient level). It was observed that only a few students were able to use tools which were already built in MS Word to enhance the presentation. Most students only finished the required changes (task of “manage” in Q2) and did nothing for this task.

Table 5.13 Percentage distribution of students of different school types for each score of Q2 (Create) of Technical PA

Score (%) School Type N

0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00

Total (%) Mean Score (SD)

Primary 830 93.59 6.2 0.21 0.00 100.00 0.07 (0.26)

Secondary 823 86.66 13.16 0.17 0.00 100.00 0.14 (0.35)

Special 22 90.91 9.09 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.09 (0.29)

N.B. - N listed in the table is the unweighted number of students.

- “Score (%)”, “Mean Score” and “SD” of both primary and secondary schools are weighted statistics.

- Figures may not sum to 100 percent because of rounding.

For primary school students, the performance was very bad. The mean score was 0.07 and the standard deviation was 0.26. 93.59% of the students got 0 mark in this task. Only 6.41% of the students reached the basic level and got 1 to 2 marks. No one got full marks in this task.

For secondary school students, this task was poorly done. The mean score was 0.14 and the standard deviation was 0.35. Over 80% of the students got 0 mark. 13.33% of the students reached the basic level and got 1 to 2 marks in this task. Besides, no student got full marks in this task.

For special school students, the performance was similar to those of the primary and secondary school students. The mean score was 0.09 and the standard deviation was 0.29. Over 90% of the students got 0 mark in this task. Besides, 9.09% of the students got 1 mark and no one got 2 or 3 marks in this task.

Here are some examples of students’ answers at the proficient and basic levels.

Proficient level

(Student: 218017) Basic level

(Student: 138022)