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SUMMARY:Inter-subject comparability\, forced policy-making and the social 
 responsibility of awarding bodies - Inter-subject comparability\, forced p
 olicy-making and the social responsibility of awarding bodies
DTSTART:20110315T163000Z
DTEND:20110315T183000Z
UID:TALK28390@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Liz Ford
DESCRIPTION:A frequent claim of awarding bodies is that standards are comp
 arable across assessments in different subject areas. And if they are not\
 , the awarding bodies can make them comparable through appropriate statist
 ical techniques\, or so the argument goes. It is not surprising that in ma
 ny countries such brave statements are received with suspicion and mistrus
 t by the stakeholders.\n\nThis seminar will look at the attempts of the Cy
 prus Testing Service to aggregate candidates’ scores from various subjec
 ts\, with the aim of producing a single index of ‘academic performance
 ’ for each candidate. We will discuss how using different comparability 
 methods can affect the outcomes\, and will show that\, depending on the me
 thod used\, different groups of candidates may be ‘penalised’. \n\nWe 
 will ask questions regarding the ethical as well as the legal dimension of
  'tampering' with the scores of candidates. For example\, how can we justi
 fy the use of a specific comparability method if we know that it may reduc
 e the chances of candidates from lower socioeconomic classes to get access
  to universities? \n\nFinally Dr Lamprianou will explain how external poli
 tical and legal issues forced the policy-makers at the Ministry of Educati
 on in Cyprus to adapt the current comparability method\, and we will brain
 storm on the possibility of something similar happening in the context of 
 the English education system.\n
LOCATION:Howard Building\, Downing College\, Cambridge
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