Examining the Examiners
There are simple tests for competency, when it comes to examiners. One of these is the consistency test.
Let's say that you have an examinee who presents a short work, not more than 10 minutes in length. He is examined by examiner A and this examiner gives him 16/20 according to a specific rubric. He is examined by examiner B and that examiner gives him 11/20 according to the same rubric. What can we conclude?
We can conclude that at least one of the following is likely to be true:
The answer is that we can't tell. We no longer have a point of reference. The system has become incompetent to judge the work presented.
We can only appeal to a known authority who has somehow been certified 'more competent', whether by previous performance or by fiat. This happens in the legal system, in which appeal can normally be made to a higher court.
Recently, though, I came across an interesting example in the education system. Should the system produce a bad result for an examinee, that examinee gets to appeal to higher authority. But there's a wrinkle: he has about a week or so to come up with a NEW presentation.
But that's stupid, since now you don't even have the original presentation to act as a benchmark. You're starting from scratch. It is as if a person on trial in the legal system is considered guilty of X and then appeals, only to be examined in a higher court as to whether he is guilty of Y. Madness, or at the very least, injustice.
Let's say that you have an examinee who presents a short work, not more than 10 minutes in length. He is examined by examiner A and this examiner gives him 16/20 according to a specific rubric. He is examined by examiner B and that examiner gives him 11/20 according to the same rubric. What can we conclude?
We can conclude that at least one of the following is likely to be true:
- the examiners are inconsistent
- at least one examiner is fraudulent
- at least one examiner is incompetent
- the rubric allows too much subjectivity
- the work presented allows for multiple interpretations
The answer is that we can't tell. We no longer have a point of reference. The system has become incompetent to judge the work presented.
We can only appeal to a known authority who has somehow been certified 'more competent', whether by previous performance or by fiat. This happens in the legal system, in which appeal can normally be made to a higher court.
Recently, though, I came across an interesting example in the education system. Should the system produce a bad result for an examinee, that examinee gets to appeal to higher authority. But there's a wrinkle: he has about a week or so to come up with a NEW presentation.
But that's stupid, since now you don't even have the original presentation to act as a benchmark. You're starting from scratch. It is as if a person on trial in the legal system is considered guilty of X and then appeals, only to be examined in a higher court as to whether he is guilty of Y. Madness, or at the very least, injustice.
Labels: Examinations, Justice
etched with acid at 7:44:00 am
8 Comments:
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
THEY NOT UNDERSTAND ME
AND ALSO TYPING WITH ONE HAND IS SO SLLOOOWWWW
/Sorrows
yes i feel your pain
the sound of one hand typing
i take your money
Ballista, bravo.
Rationale appears to be, "if you believe you do not deserve the mark, we shall examine a new work made by you with a higher authority". An attempt to abstract away the quality of the submission and to judge the person alone, perhaps? Or, more sinisterly, they implicitly uphold the accuracy of the initial judgement and are giving the examinee a chance to redeem himself?
I think it's pretty straightforward. Whether or not the examiners are competent, the fact is that if you get say, 12/20 or less, you just got a C. This means you can no longer be a 3-bonus-point candidate. This means you cannot contribute to the school's 45-pointer haul.
You must therefore do penance, i.e. redo your presentation, until you get a likely B or better. This enhances the school's prospects (and yours, but that's incidental). :)
Hoho. Add to that the fact that the marks for said assessment are kept secret from the candidates (or have been in the past, anyway) and we have even more problems. There's also the illogical matter of borderline-penance students suddenly leapfrogging borderline non-penance students (because of the second chance) when the reality is that the some students from the latter group may have stood better chances of contributing to the haul. The secrecy doesn't help the latter group because the penance cut-off happens to be arbitrary, so that decision (and potential to improve their chances) is taken out of their hands. Of course one would expect that an institution whose adopted approach is geared towards score-farming would realise and capitalise on this, but seems it isn't so. Of course, things might have changed since awhile ago but I'm inclined to doubt it.
Caw! How nice to hear from you. Well, the institutional illogic still 'reigns supreme in every sphere'.
What YHN said! - hoped to do penance instead of *just* missing the cut off. Wasn't all that disastrous in the end, though. But after seeing so many final works presented (best shots) with Q&A, one would get a clearer idea of what's good or bad and what's lacking.
I have a strange mad feeling this also means that students may not know what's 11/20 worthy or 16/20 worthy when preparing the draft for the final work (Draft soon becomes final work. I don't think there'll be more than 1 draft ...true or false?).
Final works are usually done over 2 or more late nights, without sleep. One week can lah?
A competent teacher of the subject concerned can do enough to ensure that everyone in the class should get at least a B without having to re-do anything.
Actually, an essay of 1200-1600 words can be written in 3 hours, given adequate teaching. A presentation lasting 10 minutes can be produced in the same time. A lot less stress would be generated.
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