"Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories (1 Viewer)

[ajdlinux]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

Yes, that's true. But when doing past papers, I'd like to know with more certainty what I would have gotten.

 

[helper]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

Yes, that's true. But when doing past papers, I'd like to know with more certainty what I would have gotten.

When it takes days of training to understand to read the guidelines and schemes, I wonder how much better you will be estimate the mark just on reading them.

 

[cem]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

When it takes days of training to understand to read the guidelines and schemes, I wonder how much better you will be estimate the mark just on reading them.

There is a full day of training on how to do the aligning and even then there is a BOS adviser with the group to explain what they are to do if they are heading in the wrong direction (based on my experience of actually doing it).

 

[helper]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

There is a full day of training on how to do the aligning and even then there is a BOS adviser with the group to explain what they are to do if they are heading in the wrong direction (based on my experience of actually doing it).

In terms of aligning I would agree. You look at how long the aligning process takes, I wonder how many people will be better off knowing what the cut offs are or how.

I was more refering to the scheme and guidelines, which in science:
Senior Marker comes in for 2 days to check the guidelines and come up with a preliminary scheme.
Pilots come in for 2 days to go over guidelines and scheme to check if it will work against sample papers and refine it.
Markers come in for 1 day and are introduced to guidelines and scheme. Start looking at sample papers.
Second and third day, double or triple mark papers together, to ensure understanding, which are also checked by senior markers and pilots.
Fourth day and later, you would normally be single marking with check marking and random samples sent round to confirm consistency.

When refering to a day, I mean a night session

Obtaining guidelines and schemes are not going enable people to mark the papers consistent with markers, without the training. You see when markers change groups, how long it takes them to come up to speed on marking and that is with support.

A better push and more helpful, would be to try and make the board publish standards packages each year for each subject, like they did for the first few years of the HSC.

 

[Lazarus]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

If you put aside consideration of the mathematics courses and certain parts of the science courses, it is true that there is little practical benefit to be gained from knowing past cut-offs.

There is, however, a great deal more transparency.

The Ombudsman observed: "No student currently has enough information available to them to fully understand how the final results are produced ... Students [will] benefit from having a better understanding of the process. The Board benefits from students being more confident in the reliability of the process and being able to appreciate how much care and thought has gone into its development." (p24)

It is this understanding as to how the final results are produced that is important. In the past, the primary reason for refusing access to raw marks has been the confidentiality of the cut-offs. Once the cut-offs are in the public domain, there will no longer be any reason to deny students access to their own raw marks.

Now, students might finally be able to obtain statements of their raw and scaled marks and catch a glimpse of how their UAI or ATAR has been calculated.

That is the real benefit, in my opinion.

The next challenge is to equip students with the understanding necessary to read those statements and appreciate how the various marks have been arrived at.

 

[shady145]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

Who reckons we should have a party over this great news?

sure, ill be the Dj XD

 

[helper]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

If you put aside consideration of the mathematics courses and certain parts of the science courses, it is true that there is little practical benefit to be gained from knowing past cut-offs.

Are you after the banding levels of the questions as well because I can't see how the subject effects the use of cut offs.

There is, however, a great deal more transparency.

Agree

Now, students might finally be able to obtain statements of their raw and scaled marks and catch a glimpse of how their UAI or ATAR has been calculated.

That is the real benefit, in my opinion..

I can't see the harm in publishing your raw marks raw but I don't think they are really going to understand anymore about how their ATARs are calculated. I think its just going to make more confusion because people will look at their own marks and start questioning why their marks were manipulated like they were because they don't have the whole cohort's marks

The next challenge is to equip students with the understanding necessary to read those statements and appreciate how the various marks have been arrived at.

Fair enough but when it takes days to train a teacher to do it for about 7-10 marks of an exam, do you really think it is going to be feasible to train students to correctly interpret every guideline?

 

[Lazarus]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

Are you after the banding levels of the questions as well because I can't see how the subject effects the use of cut offs.

No - I referred to mathematics because I think it's relatively simple and straightforward for a student to mark their own maths paper, thereby obtaining a total raw mark, and then to align the raw mark using the cut-offs previously determined for the paper.

It's obviously much harder to do this with most other courses as they involve answers that are not strictly right or wrong (e.g. English). There is litte practical benefit gained from having the cut-offs for those courses.

I can't see the harm in publishing your raw marks raw but I don't think they are really going to understand anymore about how their ATARs are calculated. I think its just going to make more confusion because people will look at their own marks and start questioning why their marks were manipulated like they were because they don't have the whole cohort's marks

I don't think publishing raw marks will give students an understanding of how ATARs are calculated. I do think that suppressing raw marks will prevent students from understanding how ATARs are calculated.

In my mind, publishing the marks opens the door to understanding - it's necessary but not sufficient - it's just the first step.

Fair enough but when it takes days to train a teacher to do it for about 7-10 marks of an exam, do you really think it is going to be feasible to train students to correctly interpret every guideline?

I didn't mean to suggest that students should learn how to act in a capacity similar to the Board's teacher-judges who set the cut-offs. I was intending to refer to the tertiary entrance side of the system.

I meant that students might now be able to obtain statements of their raw and scaled marks and see how their scaled aggregate, cohort percentile and ATAR have been calculated from those marks.

I maintain the belief that it is possible to educate students about scaling, ATARs and how their marks are adjusted. I think the truth of that proposition can clearly be seen from the discussions which take place on this website.

There is no doubt that there are students out there who have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to scaling. But there are also those who have put some effort into understanding the system and are capable of explaining it to others.

The number of intelligent - and, more importantly, accurate - discussions concerning scaling etc which have taken place on this website since we launched in 2002 has increased dramatically. People still get it wrong. But there is much greater awareness of the technical points now and many more are getting it right.

In my mind the next challenge is to bring this understanding to the greater student population, either by educating them directly or equipping a sufficient number of students with the knowledge to go out and explain it to others themselves.

 

[PCNQQn2]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

From this morning's paper:

How HSC students won the right to know

the boredofstudies.org.au website

Official data show the board has rechecked the data entry for an average of 1860 students a year - less than 0.3 per cent of the 67,000 students who sit the HSC.

Isn't that just under 3%?

But worse still ...

It seems the Board of Studies believes the standardised marking system is too complicated for the public to understand. It involves ranking test results against different cut-off marks for different subjects and gives greater weight to the more difficult subjects.

Why use the word rank in this context? And aligning marks has nothing to do with giving greater weight to more difficult subjects.

These sort of mistakes only add to the confusion.

 

[helper]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

No - I referred to mathematics because I think it's relatively simple and straightforward for a student to mark their own maths paper, thereby obtaining a total raw mark, and then to align the raw mark using the cut-offs previously determined for the paper.

It's obviously much harder to do this with most other courses as they involve answers that are not strictly right or wrong (e.g. English). There is litte practical benefit gained from having the cut-offs for those courses.

I can see what you are saying about maths but am not sure how subjective it is, not having marked it. I keep saying marking is turning gray to black and white. It then involves ensuring everyone agrees which is black and white. The more marks a question it is, the more times you need to do it and the harder it becomes.

I don't think publishing raw marks will give students an understanding of how ATARs are calculated. I do think that suppressing raw marks will prevent students from understanding how ATARs are calculated.

I really think that UAC needs to write a laymans guide to scaling, that includes diagrams and lots of examples. There is a mathematics lecturer at Wollongong Uni that does it well. Even older history and english teachers who had kept arguing against it, finally started to understand how it works.

I maintain the belief that it is possible to educate students about scaling, ATARs and how their marks are adjusted. I think the truth of that proposition can clearly be seen from the discussions which take place on this website.

There is no doubt that there are students out there who have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to scaling. But there are also those who have put some effort into understanding the system and are capable of explaining it to others.

The number of intelligent - and, more importantly, accurate - discussions concerning scaling etc which have taken place on this website since we launched in 2002 has increased dramatically. People still get it wrong. But there is much greater awareness of the technical points now and many more are getting it right.

I wouldn't disagree and I think a lot of teachers are as much at fault in this manner, when they continue to pass on myths or blatantly wrong information. That is why over the years, I have stayed out of UAI estimates but are happy to step into discussions on how the system works, to try and clarify points. The better understood it is the better.

In my mind the next challenge is to bring this understanding to the greater student population, either by educating them directly or equipping a sufficient number of students with the knowledge to go out and explain it to others themselves.

AND ensuring all teachers understand it and if they don't make them refer questions onto people that do.

 

[helper]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

Why use the word rank in this context? And aligning marks has nothing to do with giving greater weight to more difficult subjects.

These sort of mistakes only add to the confusion.

What they show is how poorly the whole system is understood and people are happy to pass on the wrong information

 

[ajdlinux]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

Isn't that just under 3%?

IIRC the report said they did 1860 course rechecks which came out to be 0.3% of students, or something like that.

 

[bell531]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

As someone who has worked on the aligning panel the simple answer is 'no'. The cutoffs are determined annually. I know in the time that I have done this that the cut-offs were different each year.

Ok I understand that the raw mark cut-off for a band 6 will not be exactly 86/100 (for example) but will the mark stay within a small range? I don't know what you can or can not disclose, but specific numbers would help. I basically want to know where abouts I would need to aim for a band 6 for some subjects.

 

[stepphhh]

re: "Board of Studies lashed over HSC" and other stories

so now that this has happened, how do we actually attain these raw marks, is there a certain application or will just an email do? Have they set something up where we need to pay to access our marks?

 

[Mathman26]

ey lazarus cud u post up hugh parsonages raw and aligned marks/

 

[Captain pi]

ey lazarus cud u post up hugh parsonages raw and aligned marks/

I'll oblige.

 

[spammy679]

I'll oblige.

what UAI did you get?

 

[sam5]

those parsonage things are brilliant.

So pple doin their hsc in 2009, how exactly can we get these?

 

[Aquawhite]

I'll oblige.

The parsonages are great. Please do tell us how we can access them for our marks in 2009 onwards.

P.S. I never knew markers could give half marks in the raw marks... my teachers say that the markers never do - now I know and I will show them.

 

[shakky15]

those parsonage things are brilliant.

So pple doin their hsc in 2009, how exactly can we get these?

these are crazy they even tell what you got for each question!! I have to have my ones

someone tell me how ..