Comparability of Grading Standards in Public Examinations in England and Wales: Methods and Problems

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the public examination for secondary school students in England and Wales. Prospective employers and other users are faced with the problems of interpretation of the relative merits of these candidates, and the results of public examinations play a part in these judgments. Especially in the CSE Boards, there are elements of internal assessment in many schemes which are nominally Mode 1 or Mode 2 quite as clearly cut as the categories imply. All suggested syllabuses, either new or modifications to existing structures go through a rigorous process of inspection within the boards before they are offered, in whatever mode. There are many similarities and some differences between the GCE and the CSE sectors in the internal methods that they employ to maintain comparability of standards from one year to another. Cross-moderation rests on the assumption that the standards of an entire examination board are contained in the grading of one examiner.