Techniques for monitoring the comparability of examination standards
Edited by Paul Newton, Jo-Anne Baird, Harvey Goldstein, Helen Patrick and Peter Tymms
Results from public examinations matter. They form the basis for judging students, teachers, schools, local authorities and the nation. For these judgments to be fair, standards must be comparable. Although different students may sit different examinations, the same standard should be applied from one examining board to the next, from one year to the next, across tiers of entry, over decades of time and between examinations in different subject areas.
Numerous techniques have been developed in England to investigate examining boards' success, or otherwise, in ensuring comparability. Some of these have been primarily statistical and some have been based on the judgment of experienced examiners. Yet despite more than 50 years of research in the area, there is still no consensus on which technique is the best, or whether one family of techniques is better than any other. In fact, there is not even a clear consensus on what it might actually mean for two examinations to share the same standard when they assess different competencies in different ways, which is often the case when monitoring comparability.
In this context, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority - England's regulator for external qualifications - commissioned a state-of-the-art review of techniques for monitoring comparability over the past half-century. The intention was to describe the different methods, to highlight their various strengths and weaknesses, and to consider the progress made in monitoring comparability over the past 50 years. This book represents the outcome of the review.
Chapters from this book can be freely downloaded from http://www.ofqual.gov.uk/83.aspx