Complete thesis - Murdoch University

motivation, showed that just over 50% of the students expended effort to pass this component(students would pass by completing all tasks marked as mandatory) of which only 12% wentwell beyond the requirements of the material presented. However, most students completedthe mindmapping component of the portfolio (requiring a minimum of twenty six mind maps).This may be seen as student acknowledgement of its usefulness as a formative and diagnosticassessment tool, but for the purpose of passing the exam.The model suggest the Sequencing of learning activities should be global to local, increasingin complexity and increasing in diversity. Increases in complexity and diversity did not causemany problems – exercises became more complex as the unit progressed and students wererequired to integrate the skills they had learnt for each component independently to developinga whole in the second assignment. However, the strategy of global to local skills wasproblematic. The course material had been developed to teach individual skills independentlythen putting them together in the second spiral. However, sample artefacts were availablefor students to examine (eg example Requirements Specifications comprising the individualcomponents). A global perspective was provided by placing RE in the context of softwaredevelopment and the issues encountered, but some students found this confusing – why didthey need to know this abstract stuff? Often comments such as hard concepts to grasp wereaimed at the less concrete components of the material.Figure 6.5: Raw exam marks for ENG260 1999-2002Despite these comments, if success were measured by academic results, ENG260 following anexplicit Apprenticeship model could be classed as successful: Figure 6.5 shows that a larger265