Public perceptions of reliability in examination results in England

Abstract

Building on findings from existing qualitative research into public perceptions of reliability in examination results in England, a questionnaire was developed and administered to samples of teachers, students and employers to study their awareness of and opinions about various aspects of reliability quantitatively. Main findings from the study include: there was substantial variability in the understanding of reliability concepts and attitudes to unreliability in examination results among the respondents; the majority of the respondents appeared to understand the assessment process and the factors that affect students’ performances in examinations; to a degree, the respondents also understood the factors that could introduce inconsistency in examination results; the respondents showed various degrees of experience of the examination process and acceptance of measurement error in examination results; the level of tolerance of the respondents for assessment error to some degree was positively correlated to...