TAKING STEPS TO MAINTAIN STANDARDS

WILL students be unfairly disadvantaged by taking the new A, AS and GCSE qualifications for the first time in Wales?

Not according to Qualifications Wales, the body regulating all non-degree qualifications in Wales.

It says: “The new qualifications have had changes made to their content and structure. Some of the content is new or updated, and the structure and design of the assessments has changed.

“Research shows that when new qualifications are introduced, the change has an effect on student performance. Students in the first few years of the new qualification are likely to get lower marks in their exam papers than students in previous years, where there was more familiarity with the exams. This is known as the ‘sawtooth effect’.

Over time as teachers and students gain familiarity with the new test, performance is likely to improve.

To protect students so that they are not unfairly disadvantaged from being the first to sit new qualifications, we follow the principle of comparable outcomes. This means that if the national cohort of students taking a qualification is similar to last year, then we expect the results at a national level to be similar this year.

In practical terms, we expect exam boards to make an adjustment to grade boundaries to compensate for weaker performance in the assessments - the sawtooth effect.

This comparable outcomes approach has previously been used by exam boards to maintain standards at a time of qualification change.”