Unit 3: Software development​

Overview

Area of Study 1 assists students to gain experience in developing working software modules using a range of functions and techniques. They are to include internal documentation, validation and testing techniques to ensure the modules operate as intended. Students will demonstrate these skills through teacher-provided requirements and designs. These skills will be called upon in Area of Study 2, the first part of the School-assessed Task, where they will document a need or opportunity and design a software solution. This involves the analysis and design stages of the problem-solving methodology.

Area of Study 1: Software development: programming

Teachers are required to select a suitable programming language that all students study as part of this area of study. A Programming requirements document is available on the Software Development study page that details the requirements that the selected programming requirements must meet.

As part of the assessment task, teachers are required to provide students with the solution requirements and designs. Students are not required to generate their own designs for the software modules that they develop. There are a range of avenues for providing students with opportunities to interpret requirements and designs. These include small case studies, explicit requirements statements and partial or full designs. These designs should be limited to those listed within the relevant key knowledge and include: data dictionaries, mock-ups, object descriptions and pseudocode.

It is important that teachers provide activities and time for students to understand the main programming-related concepts, gain an appreciation of applying a range of functions and techniques when using a programming language, and test the software modules to ensure they meet requirements.

The teaching of programming should include a diverse range of approaches that may include, but are not limited to: prototyping, Predict-Run-Investigate-Modify-Make (PRIMM), reverse engineering, teacher-led tutorials, exercises, tinkering, peer review of code, online learning and debugging erroneous programs.

Searching and sorting algorithms are included in the Key knowledge and while there is scope for teachers to discuss different searching and sorting algorithms as part of their teaching of the area of study, specific focus must be on listed algorithms. Teachers should discuss how the algorithms are structured, their behaviour, situations where they could be used, and their efficiency. The efficiency of searching and sorting algorithms is typically described in terms of best case, average case and worst case.

When developing assessment criteria or a marking scheme, teachers are recommended to use the VCAA performance descriptors for Unit 3 Outcome 1.

Area of Study 2: Software development: analysis and design

In this area of study, students will develop the knowledge and skills to be able to analyse and document a need or opportunity, justify the use of an appropriate development model, formulate a project plan, generate alternative design ideas and represent the preferred solution design for creating a software solution. It is important that teachers provide suitable time for students to complete part 1 of the SAT.

Teachers should provide activities for students using a range of case studies to develop their ability to interpret different scenarios and contexts so they can identify key functional and non-functional requirements, constraints and scope of the proposed solutions. These case studies should focus on existing solutions that are familiar to the students. This could include school-based examples. The case studies could further be used for students to generate alternative design ideas using a range of design tools.

Analytical tools such as context diagrams, data flow diagrams and use case diagrams are the tools to be used in this study when analysing existing systems and processes. When learning these concepts, students should understand the appropriate symbols for each diagram, how they are to be used and the rules or conventions for their use. Students can be given incomplete diagrams with a case study or learn to create diagrams from scratch from a given case study.

Development model approaches are to be included in this area of study. The models that can be studied are agile, spiral and waterfall. Students are required to understand the key characteristics of each model, justify the application of a particular model, and how the problem-solving methodology can be applied to the model. The waterfall development model is a linear approach to software development, while both the agile and spiral development models use an iterative approach. Diagrams of the development model approaches are included in the School-assessed Task section.

It is recommended that Area of Study 2 should commence before the first term break by which time students need to have a good idea of a suitable need or opportunity to investigate. They also need to have an idea of how they will manage their project and how they will be developing their software solution.