Media Studies - National Moderator's Report

Insights

91494: Produce a design for a media product that meets the requirements of a brief 

Performance overview: 

This standard requires students to complete concept, treatment and pre-production activities that demonstrate design choices to meet the requirements of a brief and show evidence of reflection and/or refinement. 

Moderated evidence that met the requirements of the standard included concept, treatment and pre-production components that were sufficiently detailed and linked to demonstrate how the production could be moved from the concept stage to a final product. Successful evidence focused equally on the content and the technological aspects of the product design. Ongoing reflection and/or refinement was clearly and regularly evidenced throughout the design and plan.  

Practices that need strengthening: 

A common issue identified in moderation was confusion between codes and conventions. Further evidence of understanding and selecting appropriate conventions for the media text type was needed. This could be better evidenced with research into the key conventions of the media text type and detailing how these will be incorporated. A thorough exploration of relevant media conventions is needed, with explicit consideration of how and why they will be used, in conjunction with stakeholder feedback. This could better enable students to demonstrate evidence of the deliberate and effective selection and application of design choices required for Merit and Excellence.  

The need for further evidence of ongoing reflection and refinement to better reflect the iterative nature of the design process was also identified. Evidence that moved beyond a summative reflection on the design, a hypothetical SWOT analysis/list of practicalities, or final versions of design materials was often needed to access the higher grades at curriculum level 8. Evidence that demonstrated convincing or effective design choices at Merit and Excellence included draft concepts/articles/scripts/storyboards/layout plans; colour coded and dated annotations and revisions; or a log that detailed reflections, revisions and actual mitigating actions.  

For group work, the design needs to clearly identify which student completed each component, and any additional information about contributions should be noted, to adequately inform the moderation of assessor decisions.   

91495: Produce a media product to meet the requirements of a brief 

Performance overview: 

To meet the standard, students must produce a media product using production technology and media conventions, with control, to meet the requirements of a brief. 

Evidence seen in moderation that successfully met the requirements of this standard demonstrated consistent control over both production technology and media conventions, with products clearly tailored to the requirements of the brief. Overall, a supplied brief which provided detailed specifications such as intended audience, scope and word count/duration and a genre type or selection, better enabled students to demonstrate the production skills required at level 8 of the curriculum.  

Practices that need strengthening: 

For some submissions, the brief supplied to students required more comprehensive specifications to better enable students to demonstrate the production skills required at this level. A common issue in moderation was short films exceeding the duration specifications, or containing content or language that was unsuitable for the intended audience.  

Greater evidence of control over production technology was also needed. For film products, further consistent control over sound and shot transitions was a common issue. For some print media products, the use of unmodified, pre-existing templates and stock photos prevented students from demonstrating the selection, application and level of crafting required at curriculum level 8. 

91497: Write a media text to meet the requirements of a brief 

Performance overview: 

This standard requires the student to write a media text, applying media conventions with control to meet the requirements of a brief. 

Evidence seen in moderation that met the requirements of this standard demonstrated consistent control over the conventions of the selected text type and clearly met the specified brief requirements. The most popular media product types seen in moderation continued to be screenplays, followed by magazine pieces. 

Practices that need strengthening: 

The provision of a brief with sufficient scope for level 8 of the curriculum and detailed specifications such as intended audience, word count/duration and a genre type or selection, better enabled students to produce written media texts suitable for this curriculum level.  

Control over media conventions was a common issue in moderation. For example, although accurate industry-wide formatting conventions of screenplays were usually evident, further control to ensure accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar was often required for evidence to meet the standard. Scripts which did not meet the duration specified in the brief was another common issue. Following the industry guideline for scripts of one page per one minute of film would better ensure that the duration requirements of the brief are met. Further guidance and support about assessing media scripts for this standard is available in the new, free Assessor Practice Tool on our Learning Management System, Pūtake (see below). 

Further evidence of consistent control of media conventions was necessary for some samples of magazine writing to reflect the text type selected, for example, to better demonstrate the conventions of a feature article, editorial or opinion piece as specified by the brief. Further evidence of consistent control of spelling, punctuation and grammar was also required for some samples to meet the standard. 

91250: Demonstrate understanding of representation in the media 

Performance overview: 

This standard requires students to describe a selected representation and its effect across media texts. This includes describing what the representation is, how features of the representation are created by media texts and the effect of the media representation. 

Successful evidence seen in moderation that met the requirements of this standard focused on the collective representation, rather than on a close reading of individual representations in the selected media texts. Conclusions were also based around key identified characteristics of the chosen representation, rather than on a close reading of individual texts.  

Practices that need strengthening: 

Identifying key characteristics of the selected representation and using selected media texts to illustrate each these characteristics and to draw conclusions could better enable students to meet the standard and demonstrate the in-depth/critical understanding required for Merit and Excellence. 

The use of a range of specific evidence from selected media texts and from other sources to support the conclusions drawn could also better enable students to access the higher grades. 

Further guidance and support about assessing this standard is available in the new, free Assessor Practice Tool on our Learning Management System, Pūtake (see below). 

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