APU: Design and Technology - Preliminary findings from the survey data

At the DATER 88 Conference, I described the development of the APU programme in Design and Technology. This involved the creation of the assessment framework, the evolution of the assessment instruments, the operation of the pilot survey, the preparations for the major survey in November 1988 and the strategies we were developing for marking and analysing the responses of pupils. I can now report that the main survey ran smoothly and involved something in excess of 10,000 15 year old pupils in approximately 700 schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Moreover, the work has now been marked by a team of 88 markers based in four regional centres, and their work has all been cross checked and standardised for analysis purposes. From July 1989 we were able to start building the biggest performance data-base in Design and Technology anywhere in the world and during August we were at last able to start interrogating it. Our overriding concern is that by the time we submit out formal report of the project in August 1990, we should have a much clearer picture of capability in Design and Technology and about the influences that fashion this capability in young people. As a first step in this direction, my presentation this year to DATER 89 is not intended to be a description of our work so much as an analysis of the principal issues with which we have been grappling in terms of test development and response assessment and with which we are about to begin grappling in terms of data analysis.