What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco • Hacker News Board

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#21

Post by tonyedgecombe » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 9:45 AM UTC

meheleventyone wrote: post #11

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and made it impossible to get a high grade if no-one fromm your college got one before Well that is unlikely. If you are going to handle it algorithmically then what else would you expect. Clearly the teachers can't be relied on because now everybody is getting an A*, the grades are effectively useless as an indicator. I was disappointed although not surprised that the government caved on this.

Personally I’d expect assessment of an individual to be about their performance not their schools past performance. Any system not predicated on that is doomed to fail in assessing students performance as this one obviously did.

Well that's what exams are for but they went out the window as soon as the virus arrived. Whatever system the govenment put in place would be worse but it didn't need to be this bad.

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#22

Post by supernova87a » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 9:46 AM UTC

This virus situation has (or will) produce a lost year of productivity. But people don't want to admit that and are still trying to operate under old constraints or processes. It will break somewhere. They want to keep schools running, and years / classes of students progressing through. But they also want to have some semblance of standards, without being able to teach properly or assess progress properly. All these factors cannot be simultaneously satisfied.

As others have said, you might just have to drop standards and have a lottery, or open enrollment. Putting in these ridiculously bad algorithms is worse than falling back on random chance.

High school/university is where it becomes easiest to hide behind bad logic and less obvious consequences. I hope we're not going to do the same for doctors, pilots, etc. and just let them pass the test because classes were canceled.

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#23

Post by 076ae80a-3c97-4 » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 9:46 AM UTC

The only true fair solution would be to put everyone back at least a year and wait until the exams can actually be done. In the mean time they could've invested the energy in getting an online exam system working and improve/innovate online learning mechanisms so that if we go back into lockdown again they are ready for it.

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#24

Post by chippy » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 9:48 AM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #19

chippy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two reasons: The results indicate that the algorithm was flawed: "Ofqual figures show 39.1% of 700,000 teacher assessments were lowered by at least one grade" Secondly, many students and teachers complained. This second reason is the thing that "the world can learn" that the article focuses on.

Which can be explained by teachers assessments being too optimistic. Now we have reverted to that you can see the results, grade inflation. Of course students complained, I would if I didn't get the grades I was hoping for. That doesn't mean the government has to cave in and pretend everybody is a winner.

We really need to see what teachers assessments in previous years look like. Are they consistently optimistic?

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#25

Post by bengillies » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 9:49 AM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #19

chippy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two reasons: The results indicate that the algorithm was flawed: "Ofqual figures show 39.1% of 700,000 teacher assessments were lowered by at least one grade" Secondly, many students and teachers complained. This second reason is the thing that "the world can learn" that the article focuses on.

Which can be explained by teachers assessments being too optimistic. Now we have reverted to that you can see the results, grade inflation. Of course students complained, I would if I didn't get the grades I was hoping for. That doesn't mean the government has to cave in and pretend everybody is a winner.

> Which can be explained by teachers assessments being too optimistic

This can also be explained by teachers assessments being an accurate representation of students ability, but students traditionally not faring as well in exams as their ability would suggest due to exam taking being an additional unrelated skill.

fwiw though, you only need to look at some of the outliers to see that the algorithm failed. It's all very well to say that it produced a consistent result in general, but each result specifically applies to an individual person so needs to be fair to each person as well as in general.

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#26

Post by _0o6v » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 9:52 AM UTC

Having worked with engineers and software managers in the UK Government, it doesn't surprise me that this was such a fuckup.

The solution would have been not to completely close schools in the first place - there was no evidence that children were particularly susceptible to COVID or at risk then, and there's lots of evidence now that they aren't. Exams could well have taken place as normal - exam halls are, by definition, socially distanced.

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#27

Post by tonyedgecombe » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 9:52 AM UTC

chippy wrote: post #24

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which can be explained by teachers assessments being too optimistic. Now we have reverted to that you can see the results, grade inflation. Of course students complained, I would if I didn't get the grades I was hoping for. That doesn't mean the government has to cave in and pretend everybody is a winner.

We really need to see what teachers assessments in previous years look like. Are they consistently optimistic?

You don't have to look far, now the government has caved we can see the grade inflation, particularly from state schools.

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#28

Post by bengillies » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 9:56 AM UTC

bengillies wrote: post #25

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which can be explained by teachers assessments being too optimistic. Now we have reverted to that you can see the results, grade inflation. Of course students complained, I would if I didn't get the grades I was hoping for. That doesn't mean the government has to cave in and pretend everybody is a winner.

> Which can be explained by teachers assessments being too optimistic This can also be explained by teachers assessments being an accurate representation of students ability, but students traditionally not faring as well in exams as their ability would suggest due to exam taking being an additional unrelated skill. fwiw though, you only need to look at some of the outliers to see that the algorithm failed. It's all v…

Whatever algorithm used though the truth is that qualifications achieved this year are not directly comparable to qualifications achieved in other years due to the lack of exams.

While nobody's fault, imho we'd have been much served by admitting that they're not comparable and doing something else (e.g. add an extra qualifier to the grade or something) than by trying to make them comparable and obviously and predictably failing at it.

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#29

Post by jackpeterfletch » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 9:57 AM UTC

_0o6v wrote: post #26

Having worked with engineers and software managers in the UK Government, it doesn't surprise me that this was such a fuckup. The solution would have been not to completely close schools in the first place - there was no evidence that children were particularly susceptible to COVID or at risk then, and there's lots of evidence now that they aren't. Exams could well have taken place as normal - exam halls are, by defin…

Yeah, Germany just ran their exams. Too important.

Re: What the world can learn from the UK's A-level grading fiasco

#30

Post by makomk » Wed, Sep 02, 2020, 9:58 AM UTC

agent008t wrote: post #12

How did they deal with this problem in other countries, say Ireland or Japan?

It looks to me like Ireland was planning on using literally the exact same process, but after it caused such a political problem for the UK government they announced that data on how schools had previously performed wouldn't be used in the standardisation process: https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/education/state_examin... (Notice how the linked explaination document from May 2020 says this would be the basis for the calculated results.) How that's meant to work I'm not sure. The results aren't out yet.