Why are so many Leaving Cert students being upgraded?

Treppen

That was the article title from a piece by Brian Mooney.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/why-are-so-many-leaving-cert-students-being-upgraded-1.4074368?mode=amp

TLDR... Someone told him that teachers 'subconsciously' mark students from particular bunches harder,to keep to their own curve.

So when the rechecks come in there's no 'mini bell curve'.

What do ye think?

I think he might have a point.

Random sample

I think there’s an element of not having to worry about the bell curve in the appeals, but there’s also the issue of examiners in subjects with multiple elements not knowing what overall mark a candidate is on.

So in music, you might have left a candidate just over a grade, you’re not going to change that, but when their practical gets added to it it could leave them just below the grade. There’s nobody putting the two grades together to see if a candidate has been left on a borderline before the results go out.

Same happens in all languages with the oral, and all subjects with a practical or project element that is marked separately.

am_zarathustra

I think the main reason for the high level this year is the introduction of online marking. If a student is one mark off a grade change or even a few you tend to go back and be very sure you've checked everything. Marking one question in isolation of multiple questions on a paper doesn't give you that discretion. Most upgrades this year were in subjects that had moved online. I'd imagine and based off my own experience this year, most were mark or two changes that led to grade changes that would have been caught in previous years by whole papers going to an examiner

I'd have been telling students to check them, given that errors are inherent in any new system! The other aspect is the students being able to view scripts at home as opposed to in school....

RealJohn

I would say that that's nonsense. Examiners (not 'correcters') are well aware that not all schools are equal and I very much doubt if they mark to a personal ball curve, conscious or unconscious.

The answer to the question of why a lot of marks are being upgraded, the answer is simple: Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

Obviously, I'm not trying to insult my fellow examiners but simply point out that many feel that the money is not worth the effort and hassle, so the SEC is probably not getting the best, most motivated examiners but mostly, people who are only doing it because they need the money, not because they feel it's worth doing for the money. If you feel your work has value, you'll do a better job, and examiners are told every year in their pay package that their work is worth less and less.

Icsics

I agree with RealJohn. I know many experienced examiners who don't mark anymore as the payment isn't worth it.

rainbowtrout

15-20 years ago if you applied for marking and had very little experience, at best you would get ordinary level junior cert if you got anything. You were trained in at that level. With grade bands covering 15% it was less likely that poor marking would affect a grade, but also with a lot of ordinary level papers being relatively straight forward - fill in the gap, multiple choice, one line answers - there was very little room for error and it was unlikely that an examiner could mess it up badly. It also gave a chance to weed out poor examiners at that stage, and you had to stick at it for a good few years before you would get a chance of moving up a level or to Leaving Cert. So by the time someone did get to mark Leaving Cert exams they had a good few years experience of marking. When I started out the phrase 'closed shop' was one I heard quite often in terms of trying to get into LC marking, which meant there was very little turnover.

With shortages in a number of subjects two things are happening, teachers who have never marked before are being dumped into Leaving Cert (HL and OL) to mark for the first time, and teachers who have little/no experience of teaching are marking. That is going to have a knock on effect on quality.

maynooth_rules

I would imagine many who are appealing their mark, come from 'good' schools. They would be corrected along with their classmates and will essentially be competing with them in a way.
When they are rechecked they dont have this issue.
I have heard in the past of students repeating their leaving but doing it in a difficult school where their paper would stand out a bit more

rainbowtrout

maynooth_rules wrote: »

I would imagine many who are appealing their mark, come from 'good' schools. They would be corrected along with their classmates and will essentially be competing with them in a way.
When they are rechecked they dont have this issue.
I have heard in the past of students repeating their leaving but doing it in a difficult school where their paper would stand out a bit more

Papers are marked according to the scheme not according to the batch that they are in regardless of what students think

Treppen

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Papers are marked according to the scheme not according to the batch that they are in regardless of what students think

In some subjects there is a certain amount of ambiguity allowed for a marker to exercise personal judgement on what makes a good response. The Marking scheme isn't 100% prescriptive, or exhaustive e.g. "or any other valid answer".

If you are getting a batch from a fairly good school with rock solid comprehensive answers,and then some more, your bar moves higher. Well mine did anyway, until I took a break for an hour or two.

rainbowtrout

Treppen wrote: »

In some subjects there is a certain amount of ambiguity allowed for a marker to exercise personal judgement on what makes a good response. The Marking scheme isn't 100% prescriptive, or exhaustive e.g. "or any other valid answer".

If you are getting a batch from a fairly good school with rock solid comprehensive answers,and then some more, your bar moves higher. Well mine did anyway, until I took a break for an hour or two.

Isn’t that issue with your marking then, rather than the marking scheme?

Treppen

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Isn’t that issue with your marking then, rather than the marking scheme?

Yes it is. And other markers are just as human as myself.

Corkgirl18

Treppen wrote: »

In some subjects there is a certain amount of ambiguity allowed for a marker to exercise personal judgement on what makes a good response. The Marking scheme isn't 100% prescriptive, or exhaustive e.g. "or any other valid answer".

If you are getting a batch from a fairly good school with rock solid comprehensive answers,and then some more, your bar moves higher. Well mine did anyway, until I took a break for an hour or two.

With online marking now you don't get batches of the same school. It was random for me anyway.

Treppen

Corkgirl18 wrote: »

With online marking now you don't get batches of the same school. It was random for me anyway.

That's a good point actually. Probably not this year, but as more online marking is introduced will we see an appeals discrepancy between online graded subjects and pen and paper graded!
That might disprove the original hypothesis.

RealJohn

Would be interesting to look at, though I imagine some people wouldn’t want that published if it turned out to be the case. I’m still of the belief that there wouldn’t be a significant difference in most subjects though, if there’s a difference at all.

Treppen

RealJohn wrote: »

Would be interesting to look at, though I imagine some people wouldn’t want that published if it turned out to be the case. I’m still of the belief that there wouldn’t be a significant difference in most subjects though, if there’s a difference at all.

Does the subject matter though? English/history is a small bit more subjective than any of the sciences, with a bit more room for movement.
Do we know why the grades were upgraded... Is there a breakdown of reasons somewhere?

RealJohn

Treppen wrote: »

Does the subject matter though? English/history is a small bit more subjective than any of the sciences, with a bit more room for movement.
Do we know why the grades were upgraded... Is there a breakdown of reasons somewhere?

I’d like to think the subject wouldn’t matter, but I appreciate that there might be more subjectivity in subjects like english. I’ve only marked subjects that are more black and white.
I doubt there’s a breakdown of reasons for upgrades, but I don’t know.