Present a reflective analysis of developing a digital outcome

Digital Technologies | Level 3 | AS 91909 (3.10) | 3 Credits 

*** In 2025 this DCAT will only be available to run in Term 3 Week 9; between Monday 8th and Friday 12th September 2025 ***

This DCAT is looking at students discussing the decisions and considerations made during the development of the digital outcome, and being able to evaluate both the outcome and the development process they undertook. 

Giving an overview of the whole process whilst giving some specific examples is key to being sucessful. 

From the NZQA 91909 Assessment Specifications 2025:

This external is a Digital Technologies (DT) common assessment tasks (CATs) and is completed online. This DCAT asks you to respond to a series of prompts or questions drawn from the achievement standards.

You should aim to write between 800 and 1500 words in total, in about 1.5hrs.

In each following year, the questions, prompts and range of samples may change.

Candidates must present a summary of developing a digital outcome. The digital outcome must have been developed by the candidate, within the past 12 months.

Except as stated below, only work directly keyed by the candidate into their computer or device during the assessment session will be used in the assessment response.

The candidate will not use hard-copy course resources or online resources, or notes of any type, to complete this assessment. The candidate will not access internet resources, except the CAT and the outcome (if the outcome is web-based or saved on the internet).

Digital outcomes developed in an electronics context: in addition, candidates may access digital copies of schematics and digital images of the outcome produced during the development of the outcome.

The questions will require candidates to discuss the decisions and considerations made during the development of the digital outcome, and evaluate both the outcome and the development process (see Explanatory Notes 4 and 5 of the standard). 

The discussion will require candidates to focus on how the following considerations were considered during development of the digital outcome: 

• selection of tools and techniques

• influence of stakeholder feedback

• aesthetics

• functionality

• cultural and/or ethical OR sustainability and/or futureproofing

• usability

• intellectual property

Candidates must prepare THREE images in advance to include in the assessment:

• a single image of the digital outcome (e.g. a website, a brand identity package, an electronic device)

• a single sample image showing a relevant digital component of the outcome in the software used to create it, for example:

  • •  the HTML /CSS for a website in a text editor (e.g. VS Code, Notepad++) 

    • the ‘layers’ view of a vector or raster graphic (e.g. in Inkscape/ Illustrator, GIMP /Photoshop)

    • the source code for controlling an electronic device (e.g. in Arduino C, PBasic) o the CAD / CAM file for a 3D model (e.g. in Blender, Fusion 360, SketchUp)

    • the source code for an application in a suitable text editor (e.g. VS Code, Replit)

• a single image of their development process (e.g. agile development, a planning chart, etc). 

The school may be required to provide a link to the candidate’s digital outcome.

By saving an assessment response at the end of the assessment session, the candidate verifies the work is their own. NZQA may digitally sample the candidate’s work to test its authenticity. 

Why you should look at the Assessment Report

Every year an assessment report is released to support teachers and students understand how the exam was marked. For the DCATs there is some quite specific detail which is worth reading through to help support students with not only this exam but their level 3 project. 

We recommend reading through the whole report yourself. These are found under the different years below but here are some of the key points:

• To be successful students need to have a project that meets Level 8 of the NZ curriculum to allow them to develop a complex outcome 

• Where there is a mix of technologies, candidates need to refer to the digital aspects of the outcome – i.e. for 3D printing, candidates should refer to the CAD (created on the likes of Fusion360) not the created model (the 3D print), and for robotics they should refer to the code and not to mechanisms

• Responses that demonstrated a thorough grasp of the chosen context, addressing it, and incorporating insights beyond the standard resources, achieved at higher levels. 

• Successful candidates distinguished themselves through their ability to integrate stakeholder feedback, justify decisions with clarity, and critically reflect on the development and impact of their outcomes. 

• Overall, candidates who displayed technical understanding, applied stakeholder feedback effectively, and demonstrated critical analysis, achieved at higher levels. 

• However, candidates who failed to provide comprehensive, detailed responses often struggled to meet the standard. Encouraging deeper reflection, broader stakeholder engagement, and iterative development will help students reach their full potential in this standard. 

Assessment Reports, Assessment Schedules, Exemplars (and the blank exam)

In the drop downs below you will find the Assessment Report, the Assessment Schedule and any exemplars NZQA provided

Task 2 - Practice Your Answers

To help pull together clear examples of your project to use in the exam make a copy of this g.doc Gathering Project Information for 91909

• Use your planning, design and development documentation to help you find this information. You can copy and paste info in but make sure you edit it so that it is specific, to the point and most importantly answers the question

• Think about what images might be helpful to support  

Task 3 - Sort out your Images (required)

You must prepare THREE images in advance to include in the assessment and make sure they are READABLE:

• a single image of the digital outcome (e.g. a website; a 3D model; an electronic device, the dinosaur toy etc)

  If you have an outcome with multiple pages put together a montage with 2/3 pages i.e. home & gallery page

• a single image of the planning process (e.g. agile development; a planning chart)

  pick a key stage or like above a montage

• a single image of the digital components of the outcome (e.g. the HTML / CSS for a website; the “layers” view of image editing; the code for an electronic device, the working file of a 3D model like Blender/Inkscape/Fusion360).

as above pick some of the key parts, don't put pages and pages of code

Should be saved as JPG or PNG file formats

How to do this

If you need to show a couple for each:

• Use this google Slide to help you make a montage (read the help comments and then make a copy)

• Insert the images in

• Snipping tool each 'montage' giving you a total of 3 files

Once you have the images:

• Save these images (3 max) in your H-drive in a folder called DCAT Images

• At the start of the exam you will drag and drop this folder onto the desktop