‘Exam boards are in danger of acting as judge, jury and counsel for the defence’

The testing and grading of students in public exams should be kept separate from the selling of resources and advice on how to succeed in exams, argues one leading educationalist
21st May 2016, 4:01pm

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‘Exam boards are in danger of acting as judge, jury and counsel for the defence’

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/exam-boards-are-danger-acting-judge-jury-and-counsel-defence
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Here’s a thought experiment. You set up a qualification, based on an examination. You write the specifications, the assessment objectives and the grade descriptors. It catches on. The results are used, not just to validate the learning of individuals, but to measure the performance of teachers and schools. They feature in league tables. A great deal hangs on the results.

You set the exam and award the grades. To support teachers, you offer training and resources. This is a compelling offer - examiners providing advice on how to get the best grades.

Meanwhile teachers learn fast, and get better at teaching to your test. Over time, results improve. After a while, concerns grow about grade inflation. In the end, the regulator steps in and qualifications are reformed.

The cycle starts again. Schools and teachers are forced to tool up for a new specification and examination. This means more training, and investment in new resources. This cycle becomes so familiar that it takes on the status of natural law.

In this scenario, having set up as examiner and awarder, you are now the authority on how to get the best out of the exam. Sounds familiar? Educators should be concerned about the blurring of the boundaries between the components in the assessment ensemble.

England is unusual in having competing and independent awarding bodies. There is a case for keeping these bodies separate from a hyperactive state, but only if they guard their integrity as awarding bodies. By straying into training, resources and textbook endorsements, they undermine their justification.

‘An uneven playing field’

An awarding body selling advice and resources on how to succeed in its own exams is in danger of creating an uneven playing field, and in fact triggering the grade inflation which leads to a crisis of confidence in the qualifications themselves. Awarding bodies are, in effect, acting not so much as judge, jury and executioner, but as judge, jury and counsel for the defence. 

AQA and Oxford University Press last year joined forces to offer a new suite of international GCSEs and A levels, “externally validated” with supporting resources - offered in the same package. Invitations were issued to “become an Oxford AQA exams school”.

In April, Cambridge Assessment promulgated ”The Cambridge Approach” to textbooks. The highest performing jurisdictions around the world, it seems, are underpinned by a strong commitment to textbook resources - the kinds of resources published by its sister organisation Cambridge University Press, and endorsed by the exam boards that it runs.

These two awarding bodies are not-for-profit, and haven’t yet moved into school management. The third big awarding body is, of course, part of a huge organisation offering “opportunities for learners at every stage of their journey”. A recent headline in Wired magazine announced “Pearson’s quest to cover the planet in company-run schools”.

It makes sense for exam boards to offer supporting resources, up to a point, but shouldn’t the testing and grading of students in “public” exams be kept separate from the running of schools and the teaching of students?

Dr Kevin Stannard is the director of innovation and learning at the Girls’ Day School Trust. He tweets as @KevinStannard1

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