OK Smartie, why then did LAzarous and others have to put in FOI appeals to get raw marks and most were denied last year?
Why does BOS say
"After the assessment marks for a course have been moderated, they are aligned to the course performance scale by using the same adjustments used to align the raw examination marks to the performance scale (see section 10 Reporting student achievement at the HSC). "
See the words in bold, your exam marks are aligned to the performance bands.
And a bit more
10 Reporting student achievement at the HSC
Reporting results in Board Developed Courses
Students results in Board Developed Courses are reported by an examination mark, a moderated school assessment mark (see p 35), an HSC mark and a performance band. In the new standards-based HSC, the Board of Studies reports student achievement in terms of standards achieved in a particular course. Performance band descriptions have been developed for each course, which describe typical achievement in Bands 2 to 6, where Band 6 is the highest standard, and a performance in Band 1 has not met the minimum standard expected. In Extension courses, there are four bands, Band E1 to Band E4.
The marks gained by students are aligned to the performance bands, with Band 6 comprising marks from 90 to100, Band 5 from 80 to 89, and so on, so that Band 2 is the range 5059. Students who have not met the minimum standard expected receive a mark less than 50. Students are awarded marks based on the standard of performance they have demonstrated, not on any pre-determined distribution of marks.
Aligning marks to standards means that a reported mark of, say, 78, in a particular course represents the same standard of achievement from year to year.
Students who are absent from an examination for which they are entered, and who do not have an Illness/Misadventure appeal upheld, will receive neither an examination mark nor a moderated assessment mark for the course concerned.
Determination of marks for Board Developed Courses
The procedure used to align HSC marks to the established standards is based on the professional judgement of subject experts, informed by statistical data and student responses. It is a multi-staged procedure that enables the subject experts to review and adjust their earlier decisions.
The standards for each course are captured in the performance band descriptions and in the HSC Standards Packages, which are CDROMs that show samples of student work at each of the band cut-offs, illustrating what students at these cut-off points typically know, understand and can do.
The subject experts, known as judges, are experienced teachers and markers. They apply their knowledge of the standards to this years examination to determine the examination mark that corresponds to the standard of performance at each of the band cut-offs. In applying the standards-setting procedure, the judges initially work individually, then meet to review and discuss the decisions they have made. Finally, they view samples of student examination responses near each of the cut-off marks to refine their judgements.
Stage 1
Working independently, each judge:
*
* uses the materials in the HSC Standards Packages to develop an image of the knowledge, understanding and skills of students whose achievement would place them on the borderline between Band 5 and Band 6
records the mark for each examination question (or task) that a borderline Band 5/Band 6 student would receive.
The judges follow the same procedure for the other band borderlines. The recording sheets are collected and the cut-off marks proposed by each of the judges for each question are averaged. These averages are added to produce the first estimate of the examination mark that will represent the borderline between each pair of bands.
Stage 2
The judges meet to review and discuss the decisions they arrived at individually and their images of the students at the borderlines between bands. They discuss their individual decisions and consider statistical reports. Each judge has the opportunity to modify any of the decisions he or she recorded during the first stage.
The judges recording sheets are again collected and processed as in Stage 1. This results in a new set of band cut-off marks.
Stage 3
The judges have the opportunity to further refine their band cut-off marks when reviewing samples of work by students whose marks are equal to each of the proposed band cut-off marks. The judges also review student works above and below the proposed cut-off marks.
The judges recording sheets are again collected and processed as in Stage 1. This results in a new set of band cut-off marks. These are the values that the judges will recommend to the Boards HSC Consultative Committee.
Reviewing and applying the decisions
The Consultative Committee meets with the judges before giving its approval to the cut-off marks to be used for the 2004 HSC examinations.
Once this is done the Boards computer is programmed so that the Band 5/Band 6 cut-off mark will be mapped to 90, the Band 4/Band 5 cut-off mark will be mapped to 80, and so on. Marks in between these key values are adjusted in a linear manner.
