The way the auditing works in the UK is as follows:
Students will be given an assignment, with a strict grading rubric. This grading rubric is open, and students are allowed to read it. The rubric will detail exactly what needs to be done to gain each mark. Interestingly, even students who read the rubric often fail to get these marks.
Teachers then grade the coursework against the rubric. Usually two from each school are randomly selected for review. If the external grader finds the marks more than 2 points off, all of the coursework will be remarked externally.
The biggest problem with this system is that experienced teachers will carefully go over the grading rubric with their students, and explain precisely what needs to be done to gain each mark. They will then read through drafts of the coursework, and point out which marks the student is failing to get it. When they mark the final coursework they will add exactly one point to the total.
Meanwhile less experienced teachers don’t actually understand what the marking rubric means. They will pattern match the students response to the examples in the rubric, and give their students a too high mark. It will then be regraded externally and the students will end up with a far lower grade than they had expected.
Thus much of the difference in grades between schools is explainable by the difference in teacher quality/experience. This is bad for courses which are mostly graded in coursework, but fortunately most academic subjects are 90% written exams.
The way the auditing works in the UK is as follows:
Students will be given an assignment, with a strict grading rubric. This grading rubric is open, and students are allowed to read it. The rubric will detail exactly what needs to be done to gain each mark. Interestingly, even students who read the rubric often fail to get these marks.
Teachers then grade the coursework against the rubric. Usually two from each school are randomly selected for review. If the external grader finds the marks more than 2 points off, all of the coursework will be remarked externally.
The biggest problem with this system is that experienced teachers will carefully go over the grading rubric with their students, and explain precisely what needs to be done to gain each mark. They will then read through drafts of the coursework, and point out which marks the student is failing to get it. When they mark the final coursework they will add exactly one point to the total.
Meanwhile less experienced teachers don’t actually understand what the marking rubric means. They will pattern match the students response to the examples in the rubric, and give their students a too high mark. It will then be regraded externally and the students will end up with a far lower grade than they had expected.
Thus much of the difference in grades between schools is explainable by the difference in teacher quality/experience. This is bad for courses which are mostly graded in coursework, but fortunately most academic subjects are 90% written exams.