I have found my strengths and weaknesses, applying them to
where I am now. I am starting to realise that the age old saying “school is the
best days of your life” could actually be true…Guide to School Examinations for
Parents and Students Whether you are thinking of pursuing higher studies or
planning for your future career, it is likely that you will be competing in a
global market. This intense competition means universities and employers expect
candidates to have a solid educational foundation, demonstrated by recognizable
and renowned qualifications. UK qualifications provide this recognition. With
more than 50 years of experience in administering school exams worldwide, the
British Council works in partnership with UK awarding bodies, Cambridge
International Examinations & Edexcel International to deliver UK
qualifications on their behalf in Pakistan. We create opportunity for nearly a
half a million people every year worldwide to achieve their life goals by
obtaining UK qualifications. British Council offers its services from offices
in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi and has a network of over 500 associated
schools. It conducts exams at more than 100 venues throughout Pakistan. UK
school qualifications are split into two levels. General Certificate of
Secondary Education (GCSE), International GCSE (IGCSE) or Ordinary Level (O
Level) qualifications are taken at around the age of 16. The General
Certificate of Education Advanced Level (A Level) or International A Level
qualifications are typically taken at 18. If you want to know more about the
Schools Examination, please download the Guide to School Examination for
Parents and Students. University students are being recruited to mark some GCSE
and A-level papers this summer, the Guardian has learned. AQA, the UK’s largest
provider of academic qualifications, is inviting “postgraduates and
undergraduates who have completed their first year of studies” in theology,
philosophy and economics to undergo assessments in January and February, as
part of a new pilot scheme. “Those who are successful will have the opportunity
to join our community of examiners,” the job advertisements state. The students
are being recruited “with the view to marking ... exams in the summer of 2021”.
Two adverts have appeared on the King’s College London careers and vacancy
website, under the headings “GCSE religious studies examiner” and “A-level
economics examiner”. One says: “We are seeking theology, religion and
philosophy experts to mark our GCSE exams ... If successful, you will be able
to mark the Christianity paper from our GCSE [religious studies]
specification.” The other advert reveals AQA is looking for “economics experts”
to mark “either paper 1 or paper 2” of its A-level economics exam. All of these
papers include long-form essay questions. The GCSE Christianity paper can
determine half of a candidate’s religious studies GCSE grade while each A-level
economics paper is usually worth a third of an A-level. An ad seeking students
to help mark the Christianity paper in GCSE religious studies An ad seeking
students to help mark the Christianity paper in GCSE religious studies. “I
would be concerned about the lack of experience of these young people in this
marking experiment at any time,” said Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary
of the National Education Union. “But this year, when our students are going to
need fairness in their exams more than any other, because of the difficulties
of the pandemic, I don’t think this is the right year to carry out this
experiment.” He added: “We’re talking about religious studies and economics,
where there could be more questions of judgment than on some other papers. It
really doesn’t seem sensible.” Helen Webb, AQA’s resourcing and talent manager,
said the board was doing a “very small and very controlled pilot as we look to
expand our pool of expert examiners in certain subjects”. There are some
subjects and topics, she said, where it is “always a challenge to recruit
enough good examiners. So we have to be open-minded if we want students to get
their results on time and all our marking to be high quality.” She said the
pilot would “probably involve around 50 people” out of its 30,000-plus
examiners. “They’ll receive training and have to pass two different tests before
they’re allowed to do any real marking – and anyone allowed to mark real
student answers will be constantly monitored in real time, to make sure they’re
doing it well.
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If not, they’ll be stopped.” It is not yet clear what proportion
of AQA’s 10m exam scripts the examiners in the pilot will be asked to mark. An
experienced AQA economics examiner, who has been teaching economics A-level for
15 years, told the Guardian that AQA usually started off new economics markers
with 100 scripts each. AQA said the focus of its pilot would be on graduates
and postgraduates, but it is also “interested in assessing some undergraduates
as well to see how they perform”. The exam board has used PhD and PGCE students
(postgraduates who are training to be teachers) in the past and claims their
marking has been “as good as that of new examiners who are qualified teachers”.
Research carried out by AQA and the University of Bristol in 2010 found that
overall, undergraduates could mark part-scripts as accurately – but not as consistently
– as existing GCSE English examiners, although there were some undergraduates
who marked as well as the best examiners. An ad to take part in marking
economics papers An ad to take part in marking economics papers. AQA revealed
that “for some time now” it has been using newly qualified teachers and PGCE
students as markers in some subjects. It also said university students would
only be approved to mark the types of questions that they have shown they can
mark well. “While the vast majority of our examiners will always be experienced
teachers, that doesn’t mean that no one else can ever be suitable for the job,”
said Webb. “For some types of questions in some qualifications, being good at
following a mark scheme – combined with some knowledge of the subject – is
enough.” Ben Wood, chair of the National Association of Teachers of Religious
Education (NATRE), said he thought pupils sitting the AQA religious studies
GCSE in the summer may feel “concerned” and “worried” about the idea of an
undergraduate marking their Christianity papers. “You do need to know what
you’re talking about to mark this. You need to know some of the intricacies of
Christian theology, particularly.” He teaches the course himself and said
experienced teachers who mark the paper understand how the course fits
together, and how GCSE students might pull information from one area of the
syllabus and use it appropriately in another area. “Being a humanity subject,
it’s also not as simple as providing mark schemes and checking exam scripts
against that,” he said. Wood said the current cohort of GCSE and A-level state
school students had been enormously disadvantaged by the pandemic and some had
missed a huge amount of teaching time. “The thought of them potentially having
somebody marking their paper who’s not well qualified to do that – it feels to
me like we’re adding potentially more disadvantage on to more disadvantage. And
they deserve better.” An economics A-level teacher who works as a “team lead”
examiner for AQA and wished to remain anonymous, said he was worried it might
be possible for wrongly marked scripts to slip through AQA’s “strict” quality
control system: “There are checks in place and they are good – but you don’t
check every single bit of marking.” An AQA spokesperson said this marker did
not have knowledge of the pilot’s tests or monitoring processes and was jumping
to the wrong conclusions. Joe Kinnaird, a religious studies GCSE teacher and
AQA examiner, said even if university students passed all of AQA’s standardisation
and quality control tests, he does not think they will be capable of marking
exams well. “Ultimately, I think you have to be a classroom teacher. It
actually undermines the teaching profession to assume that people who are not
qualified teachers are able to mark exam papers.” Sarah Hannafin, a policy
adviser at the National Association of Head Teachers, said when young people
took an exam, their expectation was that markers were “experienced, serious
teachers”. With confidence already “quite rocky”, due to what happened with the
exams last summer, she thinks it is vital young people and their parents feel
they can rely on the exam-marking process. “I’d go so far as to say I think it
would be a mistake for them [AQA] to go ahead with it.” Ofqual, the exams
regulator, said exam boards must ensure markers were competent. “What matters
most is that markers are conscientious and follow the exam board’s mark
schemes,” a spokesperson said. “Students can ask for the marking of their paper
to be reviewed if they believe an error has been made.” In response to the
criticisms, a spokesperson for AQA said the pilot would in no way disadvantage
this year’s students or affect the accuracy of their results. How can you
design fair, yet challenging, exams that accurately gauge student learning?
Here are some general guidelines. There are also many resources, in print and
on the web, that offer strategies for designing particular kinds of exams, such
as multiple-choice. Choose appropriate item types for your objectives.
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Should
you assign essay questions on your exams? Problem sets? Multiple-choice
questions? It depends on your learning objectives. For example, if you want
students to articulate or justify an economic argument, then multiple-choice
questions are a poor choice because they do not require students to articulate
anything. However, multiple-choice questions (if well-constructed) might
effectively assess students’ ability to recognize a logical economic argument
or to distinguish it from an illogical one. If your goal is for students to
match technical terms to their definitions, essay questions may not be as
efficient a means of assessment as a simple matching task. There is no single
best type of exam question: the important thing is that the questions reflect your
learning objectives. Highlight how the exam aligns with course objectives.
Identify which course objectives the exam addresses (e.g., “This exam assesses
your ability to use sociological terminology appropriately, and to apply the
principles we have learned in the course to date”). This helps students see how
the components of the course align, reassures them about their ability to
perform well (assuming they have done the required work), and activates
relevant experiences and knowledge from earlier in the course. Write
instructions that are clear, explicit, and unambiguous. Make sure that students
know exactly what you want them to do. Be more explicit about your expectations
than you may think is necessary. Otherwise, students may make assumptions that
run them into trouble. For example, they may assume – perhaps based on
experiences in another course – that an in-class exam is open book or that they
can collaborate with classmates on a take-home exam, which you may not allow.
Preferably, you should articulate these expectations to students before they
take the exam as well as in the exam instructions. You also might want to
explain in your instructions how fully you want students to answer questions
(for example, to specify if you want answers to be written in paragraphs or
bullet points or if you want students to show all steps in problem-solving.)
Write instructions that preview the exam. Students’ test-taking skills may not
be very effective, leading them to use their time poorly during an exam. Instructions
can prepare students for what they are about to be asked by previewing the
format of the exam, including question type and point value (e.g., there will
be 10 multiple-choice questions, each worth two points, and two essay
questions, each worth 15 points). This helps students use their time more
effectively during the exam. Word questions clearly and simply. Avoid complex
and convoluted sentence constructions, double negatives, and idiomatic language
that may be difficult for students, especially international students, to
understand. Also, in multiple-choice questions, avoid using absolutes such as
“never” or “always,” which can lead to confusion. Enlist a colleague or TA to
read through your exam. Sometimes instructions or questions that seem perfectly
clear to you are not as clear as you believe. Thus, it can be a good idea to
ask a colleague or TA to read through (or even take) your exam to make sure
everything is clear and unambiguous. Think about how long it will take students
to complete the exam. When students are under time pressure, they may make
mistakes that have nothing to do with the extent of their learning. Thus,
unless your goal is to assess how students perform under time pressure, it is
important to design exams that can be reasonably completed in the time
allotted. One way to determine how long an exam will take students to complete
is to take it yourself and allow students triple the time it took you – or
reduce the length or difficulty of the exam. Consider the point value of different
question types. The point value you ascribe to different questions should be in
line with their difficulty, as well as the length of time they are likely to
take and the importance of the skills they assess. It is not always easy when
you are an expert in the field to determine how difficult a question will be
for students, so ask yourself: How many subskills are involved? Have students
answered questions like this before, or will this be new to them? Are there
common traps or misconceptions that students may fall into when answering this
question? Needless to say, difficult and complex question types should be
assigned higher point values than easier, simpler question types. Similarly,
questions that assess pivotal knowledge and skills should be given higher point
values than questions that assess less critical knowledge.
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Think ahead to how
you will score students’ work. When assigning point values, it is useful to
think ahead to how you will score students’ answers. Will you give partial
credit if a student gets some elements of an answer right? If so, you might
want to break the desired answer into components and decide how many points you
would give a student for correctly answering each. Thinking this through in
advance can make it considerably easier to assign partial credit when you do
the actual grading. For example, if a short answer question involves four
discrete components, assigning a point value that is divisible by four makes
grading easier. Creating objective test questions Creating objective test
questions – such as multiple-choice questions – can be difficult, but here are
some general rules to remember that complement the strategies in the previous
section. Write objective test questions so that there is one and only one best
answer. Word questions clearly and simply, avoiding double negatives, idiomatic
language, and absolutes such as “never” or “always.” Test only a single idea in
each item. Make sure wrong answers (distractors) are plausible. Incorporate
common student errors as distractors. Make sure the position of the correct
answer (e.g., A, B, C, D) varies randomly from item to item. Include from three
to five options for each item. Make sure the length of response items is
roughly the same for each question. Keep the length of response items short.
Make sure there are no grammatical clues to the correct answer (e.g., the use
of “a” or “an” can tip the test-taker off to an answer beginning with a vowel
or consonant). Format the exam so that response options are indented and in
column form. In multiple choice questions, use positive phrasing in the stem,
avoiding words like “not” and “except.” If this is unavoidable, highlight the
negative words (e.g., “Which of the following is NOT an example of…?”). Avoid
overlapping alternatives. Avoid using “All of the above” and “None of the
above” in responses. (In the case of “All of the above,” students only need to
know that two of the options are correct to answer the question. Conversely,
students only need to eliminate one response to eliminate “All of the above” as
an answer. Similarly, when “None of the above” is used as the correct answer
choice, it tests students’ ability to detect incorrect answers, but not whether
they know the correct answer.) plans for next year’s A-level and GCSE cohorts
(Students in England to get notice of topics after Covid disruption, 3
December). They do nothing to address the fundamental weakness in our education
system, which is the underachievement of disadvantaged pupils compared with
those from advantaged backgrounds. The pandemic has widened the differences
between the two groups. Pupils in private schools have much better
distance-learning provision if they are unable to attend. Advantaged pupils in
state schools have access to computers and broadband and to places where they
can study at home. The government’s promise to ensure all pupils have access to
distance learning is another broken one. The measures announced – advance
warning of topics, taking aids into exams, contingency papers for those
suffering any disruption during the exam period – will all favour advantaged
pupils.
