Student Assessment with Reference to Examinations in Poultry Husbandry in British Agricultural Colleges

Abstract

SUMMARYStudent assessment is discussed in terms of reliability or repeatability, validity, and the effects of frequency and type of assessment on motivation of learning and improvement of teaching technique. These qualities are probably best provided by continuous or cumulative assessment, which involves frequent testing using a variety of techniques—traditional examinations with essay-type questions, quizzes, practical tests and continuous evaluation of practical work, projects and oral examination. This is the method employed in British Agricultural Colleges offering the Higher National Diploma (HND) and Ordinary National Diploma(OND) courses in poultry husbandry.Scripts cannot be reliably distinguished by differences of only a few marks. It is therefore suggested that scripts might be marked using bigger batches of equality than is at present the case. Limited evidence suggests that reliability of marking is as good when scripts are marked by overall impression as when they are marked analytically.Range and standard deviation of marks awarded can vary considerably in different examinations because of differences in examiners and in subject matter. Aggregate mean scores, representing the combined marks of all papers, may therefore be unduly influenced by papers with a greater range and extreme marks. A method of scaling is suggested in which the transformed scores would have the same mean and standard deviation in each paper. The scaled marks would then be used to compute the aggregate mean score.