Assignment Instructions

This is your brief:

You have been asked by the Producer of Watchdog to produce a 3 minute film on the use of vending machines in the workplace. In order to make the film you will need some facts and figures, and this is where your skill with Application of Number will be necessary.

Task 1

Research

You will need to find out the types of vending machine that are available and the names of all the products that a vending machine can hold. You can use your school or college vending machine to provide this information, and of course there is plenty of research material available on the web.

Remember to find a site that has some information in the form of a graph or bar chart.

Task 2

Making a questionnaire

Once you have found out what is available you will then need to find out what usage the machine gets. Who buys what and in what quantity? In order to do this make up a questionnaire.

Remember you can find out more about questionnaires by going to the Making a Good Report module in the Communications section of the BBC Key Skills website.

Task 3

Recording the information

All this data can be displayed either on spreadsheets, graphs or pie charts.

A spreadsheet can be used to show nearly all the information. You can add the costs of the items and use the correct formula to work out total costs.

Remember you can go to the Spreadsheet module in the ICT section of the BBC's Key Skills website for more information.

Task 4

Presenting your findings

When you have produced your spreadsheet it will need to be presented (just as you would use this research to provide some interesting facts for your short film)

So think about the ways in which you could present this information. You could print out the spreadsheet data - or present some of the information in the form of bar or pie charts.

When you have done this evaluate your findings.

Remember you will need to explain how your conclusions relate to the purpose of the assignment. So once you know what is available and what people buy you will then be able to decide on what you might want to include in your film.

Assessor Notes

As an assessor you will need to make sure that you make sufficient notes during the observed performance to cover all the Application of Number requirements. Printouts will provide good evidence.

The students can demonstrate their ICT skills within this assignment and students can be guided to extend their research skills by looking at advertising, using newspapers and secondary source material on the web.