Rules concerning how schools report assessment marks. (1 Viewer)

[~ ReNcH ~]

Are there any specific BOS rules as to how schools report their students' raw assessment marks e.g. to the nearest 1 or 2 decimal places.
Coz if different schools reported them differently, wouldn't that muddle up the moderating process?

 

[tennille]

I think there are rules.Different subjects do it differently though. But it would be the same for every school.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

It'd be kind of poor if they rounded marks to the nearest whole though - you'd get so many ties e.g. 84.5 would be virtually worth the same as 85.49.

 

[tennille]

I think they round it of to 1 or 2 decimal places.

 

[grimreaper]

No I'm pretty sure its gotta be to the nearest whole number actually

 

[Idyll]

i was also told schools can only submit whole numbers.

 

[Slidey]

Are there any specific BOS rules as to how schools report their students' raw assessment marks e.g. to the nearest 1 or 2 decimal places.
Coz if different schools reported them differently, wouldn't that muddle up the moderating process?

I doubt it would, because aren't ranks as well as marks submitted?

 

[helper]

All marks submitted to BOS are whole numbers

 

[Lazarus]

It'd be kind of poor if they rounded marks to the nearest whole though - you'd get so many ties e.g. 84.5 would be virtually worth the same as 85.49.

The Board requires schools to ensure that when reporting:
<ul><li>students get meaningful feedback about what they are able to do and what they need to do in order to improve their level of performance
<li>the ranking and relative difference between students result from different levels of achievement of the specified standards
<li>marks submitted to the Board for each course are on a scale sufficiently wide to reflect adequately the relative differences in student performances.</ul>This last point would overcome the problem you describe - though I don't know whether schools actually do this.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

The Board requires schools to ensure that when reporting:
<ul><li>students get meaningful feedback about what they are able to do and what they need to do in order to improve their level of performance
<li>the ranking and relative difference between students result from different levels of achievement of the specified standards
<li>marks submitted to the Board for each course are on a scale sufficiently wide to reflect adequately the relative differences in student performances.</ul>This last point would overcome the problem you describe - though I don't know whether schools actually do this.

So if there's 1 mark separating 1st and 4th, then they'd report marks to the nearest 1 or 2 decimal places. But if the gap between 1st and 2nd is greater than 1 mark, they'll report whole numbers?

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

All marks submitted to BOS are whole numbers

Is there a BOS file that says that?

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

I doubt it would, because aren't ranks as well as marks submitted?

But suppose, as in my hypothetical above, Person A got 84.5 and Person B got 85.49 - the relative difference is 0.99, however if their marks are reported to the nearest whole, then the relative difference is virtually 0.

 

[Lazarus]

So if there's 1 mark separating 1st and 4th, then they'd report marks to the nearest 1 or 2 decimal places. But if the gap between 1st and 2nd is greater than 1 mark, they'll report whole numbers?

Rather than reporting to a certain precision, I think an appropriate transformation would be made to stretch the distribution of marks so that it would be possible to adequately discriminate between all students with marks reported as whole numbers.

 

[Slidey]

But suppose, as in my hypothetical above, Person A got 84.5 and Person B got 85.49 - the relative difference is 0.99, however if their marks are reported to the nearest whole, then the relative difference is virtually 0.

Which is where the ranks come in to discriminate between marks, right?

Lazarus: You mean report marks out of, say, 1000?

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

Which is where the ranks come in to discriminate between marks, right?

Lazarus: You mean report marks out of, say, 1000?

But suppose the school ranks the students based on the whole number figures, then technically those two people would have the same rank (unless they determined the rankings prior to rounding first).

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

Rather than reporting to a certain precision, I think an appropriate transformation would be made to stretch the distribution of marks so that it would be possible to adequately discriminate between all students with marks reported as whole numbers.

But how could the school make such an accurate transformation? - unless, as Slide Rule suggested, schools report the marks out of 1000 (or something similar)

 

[Lazarus]

It's very straightforward - they simply stretch the distribution of marks out to cover a wider range.

Most schools would typically award marks between 50 and 100. Prior to sending marks to the Board, a school could apply a simple linear transformation (e.g. y = 2x - 100) which would have the effect of separating students with similar marks. For example, marks of 78.5 and 79 would become the same mark (79) when rounded to the nearest integer, but become marks of 57 and 58 after the transformation.

This doesn't have any adverse effect on students, because the marks will be forced to conform to the proper distribution during the moderating process. In fact, discriminating between students is usually to their advantage.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

Hmm - so when does a "true tie" occur? Would this only occur if two students' assessment marks were exactly the same...I'm assuming, however, that a difference such as 0.001 is negligible (e.g. I think I nipped one guy in Yr 8 by 0.002, but we were both ranked equally)

Btw. Is it up to the subject co-ordinators to determine the transformations? What if a school teacher is lazy and couldn't be bothered to make such adjustments?

 

[Lazarus]

Hmm - so when does a "true tie" occur?

As you said - when the difference is negligible.

Btw. Is it up to the subject co-ordinators to determine the transformations? What if a school teacher is lazy and couldn't be bothered to make such adjustments?

Then the 'clumped' students could potentially be disadvantaged.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

As you said - when the difference is negligible.



Then the 'clumped' students could potentially be disadvantaged.

In that case, my teachers had better not be lazy - the competition is quite fierce in the subjects I do at my school, particularly in Business.