Do our external exam marks get moderated? (1 Viewer)

[Elephants]

Looking at my brother's portfolio, who, mind you, got a UAI of 48.35, he got marks of between 60-70 for each of his subjects. Now, I can bet every last one of my pennies that he didn't get those sorts of marks as raw marks in his exams, because quite frankly, he's dumb. So, how do external exam marks get moderated?

 

[bekmay]

maybe scaling?

 

[Survivor39]

Looking at my brother's portfolio, who, mind you, got a UAI of 48.35, he got marks of between 60-70 for each of his subjects. Now, I can bet every last one of my pennies that he didn't get those sorts of marks as raw marks in his exams, because quite frankly, he's dumb. So, how do external exam marks get moderated?

The correct term is "alignment" for external exam mark. "Moderation" is generally used in the context of "moderating" internal school assessment marks. Sorry, just want to clarify this before I begin my explanation.

Yes your raw exam marks do get aligned. This is because the degree of difficulty of each year's paper is different. Prior to the HSC exams, there are a number of judges who will sit the exam and determine how "difficult" the paper is as compared with previous years and they determine the cut-offs for each band. For example:

If in 2007 the cut off a band 6 in chemistry is 86/100 for Chemistry, and they feel the paper in 2008 is easier, they will set the cut-off for Band 6 for 2008 a mark of 88/100. What this implies is if you acheived a raw mark of 88/100 in the external examination mark in the 2008 paper, your aligned external mark which will be reported to you is 90/100. They will extrapolate everything in between by converting 100/100 (raw) to 100/100 (aligned) and 88/100 (raw) to 90/100 (aligned). This applies to all other bands.

 

[Elephants]

The correct term is "alignment" for external exam mark. "Moderation" is generally used in the context of "moderating" internal school assessment marks. Sorry, just want to clarify this before I begin my explanation.

Yes your raw exam marks do get aligned. This is because the degree of difficulty of each year's paper is different. Prior to the HSC exams, there are a number of judges who will sit the exam and determine how "difficult" the paper is as compared with previous years and they determine the cut-offs for each band. For example:

If in 2007 the cut off a band 6 in chemistry is 86/100 for Chemistry, and they feel the paper in 2008 is easier, they will set the cut-off for Band 6 for 2008 a mark of 88/100. What this implies is if you acheived a raw mark of 88/100 in the external examination mark in the 2008 paper, your aligned external mark which will be reported to you is 90/100. They will extrapolate everything in between by converting 100/100 (raw) to 100/100 (aligned) and 88/100 (raw) to 90/100 (aligned). This applies to all other bands.

Thanks a lot for that dude! You really explained it well.

 

[Shan4curry]

The correct term is "alignment" for external exam mark. "Moderation" is generally used in the context of "moderating" internal school assessment marks. Sorry, just want to clarify this before I begin my explanation.

Yes your raw exam marks do get aligned. This is because the degree of difficulty of each year's paper is different. Prior to the HSC exams, there are a number of judges who will sit the exam and determine how "difficult" the paper is as compared with previous years and they determine the cut-offs for each band. For example:

If in 2007 the cut off a band 6 in chemistry is 86/100 for Chemistry, and they feel the paper in 2008 is easier, they will set the cut-off for Band 6 for 2008 a mark of 88/100. What this implies is if you acheived a raw mark of 88/100 in the external examination mark in the 2008 paper, your aligned external mark which will be reported to you is 90/100. They will extrapolate everything in between by converting 100/100 (raw) to 100/100 (aligned) and 88/100 (raw) to 90/100 (aligned). This applies to all other bands.

You helped someone else today, too!
Thanks a lot for this, so clear and concise - not like all the mumbo jumbo teachers feed us with. =S

 

[cem]

One small correction. The judging is done during the marking process NOT before the exam has been sat.

It is done by a team of markers who make determinations of the marks based on the perceived difficulty of the question, the marking guidelines being used and the performance descriptor bands. They also try to get a marker from each section of the paper on the judging panel who can actually give feedback about how the students are handling the question.

How do I know that it is done during the marking process - I have been on the panel for Modern History in the past and know others who have done it for other subjects.

They don't make the final determination until after all the marking has been completed and then make a recommendation to the BOS. This is one of the last things done in the entire marking process, not one of the first.

 

[dp624]

Yeah, for english i hear they take a sample from some schools (same schools each year i think) and mark them to see how they're going
just what i heard
2cents

 

[cem]

Yeah, for english i hear they take a sample from some schools (same schools each year i think) and mark them to see how they're going
just what i heard
2cents

That is part of the pre-marking process undertaken by the Senior Markers in choosing a range of scripts for the actual markers to go through during their first session or two of marking to get the range of marks and be sure they are all marking to the same standard.

 

[Survivor39]

One small correction. The judging is done during the marking process NOT before the exam has been sat.

They don't make the final determination until after all the marking has been completed and then make a recommendation to the BOS. This is one of the last things done in the entire marking process, not one of the first.

Thank you for the correction, cem.

Personally, I just think that the cut-offs should be made on the sole basis of the difficulty of the paper. This is why I thought the paper was judged by a panel before the HSC exam.

By judging after the HSC exams, the determination of the cut-offs will be influenced by
1) the difficulty of the paper
2) the general ability of the cohort in how they answer/interpret the question

By including factor 2) into the determination of cut-offs, I think is not entirely appropriate, especially in subjects with a relatively low number of cohort.

For example, just because a large proportion of students poorly answered/intepreted a particular question/section doesn't necessarily mean the paper was "difficult" and hence, justify a lowered cut-offs for a paper in any given year. Similarly, just because a cohort was bright and answered most question well does not necessarily reflect the paper being easy and students being "penalised" by an increase of the cut-off mark. I think this current system of not pre-determining cut-offs is a bit bias.

 

[cem]

Thank you for the correction, cem.

Personally, I just think that the cut-offs should be made on the sole basis of the difficulty of the paper. This is why I thought the paper was judged by a panel before the HSC exam.

By judging after the HSC exams, the determination of the cut-offs will be influenced by
1) the difficulty of the paper
2) the general ability of the cohort in how they answer/interpret the question

By including factor 2) into the determination of cut-offs, I think is not entirely appropriate, especially in subjects with a relatively low number of cohort.

For example, just because a large proportion of students poorly answered/intepreted a particular question/section doesn't necessarily mean the paper was "difficult" and hence, justify a lowered cut-offs for a paper in any given year. Similarly, just because a cohort was bright and answered most question well does not necessarily reflect the paper being easy and students being "penalised" by an increase of the cut-off mark. I think this current system of not pre-determining cut-offs is a bit bias.

From my experience the general experience of the cohort was NOT taken into account at all.

We only discuss how the students are handling the question to get an indication of the difficulty of the question e.g. just because teachers find the question relatively easy in May doesn't mean that 17/18 year olds will do so in November so we do need to have an indication of how difficult the actual question was by seeing how the candidature actually handled the question. We don't actually see the responses until the third of the meetings. During the first meeting we simply go off the marking guidelines, the question and the performance descriptor band and a verbal report from ONE or maybe TWO markers on that section of the paper (based on the marking of perhaps 150 scripts at the time of the first meeting). During the second meeting some statistics are made available which shows how that question is fitting in to the general results of that section which may or may not be indicating a problem with that particular question and how it is being handled - remember that for subjects like Modern History only one question per section are used so statistical analysis is needed to make sure that the cut-off is set fairly. During the third session we see some actual scripts and say yes - that actual script meets the cut-off band or no that is too low for what I was think (or too high). Actually seeing the work that is getting the marks and therefore the work that will make the cut-offs ensures that the cut-offs are at the right point.

I know that there have been times when I have actually seen the essays set at a cut-off that I have felt that I have been either too harsh or too lenient with where I was putting the cut-off. Doing that beforehand would not allow for a check with actual scripts and be sure that those at the cut-off are what you meant them to be. This way you can actually see a couple of exams that you say should be getting 89/90 and 79/80 etc and be absolutely sure that the cut-off is right for the standards.

The point of looking at the difficulty of the paper is to ensure that people who use the marks can make comparisons from one year to the next and that 90 this year is the same as 90 last year etc. You can't do that if you don't take into account the difficulty of the paper and having one or two people give an annecdotal opinion of how they are finding things bearing in mind that we are well aware that we are only seeing a fraction of the overall responses and would have a skewed idea of the performance.

The process has been put in place to ensure the fairest result for students.