House Examinations - Purposeful and Impactful?

 

In Ireland and internationally, many students who are not sitting state examinations are turning their focus to end of year examinations. In some cases, students will undertake projects or a blend of projects and examinations for their assessment.

Crucially, for both students and teachers, preparing for written examinations can take considerable time and effort. If we are going to make this investment, it is crucial that the examinations are constructed effectively and with a clear purpose.

To improve the level of effectiveness, we must have succinct and clear answers for the following questions:

1) What is the purpose of these examinations?
2) How will they enhance learning for all students?
3) Are our school-based examinations aligned with the national curriculum standards (IGCSE, IB, JC, SC)?
4) Are the examination papers valid and reliable in both construction, setting and grading?
5) How will the data attained enhance strategic decisions at both departmental and SLT level in terms of curriculum development, pastoral systems and interventions?
6) When and in what form will students receive guidance in terms of the areas to be revised for the examination?
7) When and in what format will students receive their reports? When will there be opportunity to act on the feedback provided?

Examination Construction - Considerations

1) Using past examination papers for current students
This can lead to a loss of validity as the assessment does not align with the achieved learning.

Solution: Modify, update or re-construct

2) Variations of examination papers within subject departments and across class groups
This can lead to issues of equity and fairness and a loss of usable data to analyse progress across year groups. Additionally, this impedes the opportunity for constructive evaluations within departments.

Solution: Ensure that a common scheme/plan is used to orientate T&L. Based on this a common assessment can be constructed to assess agreed aspects of knowledge and skills for the appropriate age/stage. AI opportunity to generate the assessment and teachers to review.

3) Setting examination papers without constructing a detailed marking scheme
This can lead to a loss of reliability in the marking process and subjective bias.

Solution: Use past examination papers and harness the experience of examiners within the department to generate a marking scheme. Potential for AI to create the marking scheme and teachers to review.

4) Not agreeing as a department on the amount of information to be disclosed to students in terms of exam content
This can lead to reliability issues and unfairness

Solution: Backwards design the units of learning from the examination dates. Have the examination designed 6 - 8 weeks in advance and agree on the date to share and information/resources to be uploaded to their learning platform.