Research and analysis

International literature review of secondary assessments

A review of secondary assessments in 23 English-speaking jurisdictions.

Applies to England

Documents

International approaches to the moderation of non-examination assessments in secondary education (Cuff, 2018)

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Details

The purpose of this report is to review how moderation is currently being delivered in a number of jurisdictions across the world at upper secondary, and in particular to consider what might be learnt in terms of the approach to moderation that is currently taken in upper secondary assessments in England.

To meet this purpose, jurisdictions were identified that have a population of greater than 1 million, and either have English as a primary language, or use English for official documentation. The final list comprised of 23 jurisdictions.

For each, literature was sourced in relation to their main senior secondary school leaving qualification (i.e. equivalent to A levels in England) to cover a number of pre-determined topics of interest: the stated purpose of non-examination assessment and moderation, how pupils and schools are sampled for moderation, how moderation is carried out, and what processes exist for how to appeal outcomes of moderation. All qualifications were high-stakes in the sense that they are the main secondary school qualification, which will be used for entry into higher education.

The findings of this review were that a number of different approaches to moderation are currently taken across the globe. These include consensus moderation (where teachers meet to discuss their marking, and agree upon the assessment standards), verification (where moderators evaluate centres’ assessments, but centres have the responsibility for making corrective action), moderation by inspection (where moderators evaluate centres’ marking, and corrective action is made based on their decisions), and statistical moderation (where centres’ non-examination assessment marks are scaled to match the mean and spread of their exam marks).

Overall, while it was found that England does not appear to ‘stand out’ from the other jurisdictions (i.e only a few aspects of our approach would be considered ‘unusual’ within the international landscape), various points for consideration can be raised in terms of what we might learn from these international approaches. The purpose of these points is not to provide recommendations as to whether the current system in England should or should not be changed. Rather, they are intended to provide a number of points of comparison for policy makers to bear in mind.

Published 29 March 2018