ncea and standards based education

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NCEA and standards based education Paul Cliffe and John Wright [email protected]

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Page 1: Ncea and standards based education

NCEA and standards based education

Paul Cliffe and John [email protected]

Page 2: Ncea and standards based education

Taken from NZQA website “Only those students who meet the criteria for

Merit or Excellence Level get those grades. Therefore proportions gaining Merit and Excellence grades change a little from year to year.”

“This sets NCEA apart from qualifications systems that use a predetermined distribution of grades – where a limited number of high grades is allocated to candidates who do better than the rest, regardless of the standard of their work.”

How does NCEA’s standards-based system challenge, motivate and reward students?

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“Regardless of whether an achievement standard is assessed internally or externally, the criteria for Achievement with Merit and Achievement with Excellence are set down in the standard.”

“Only those students who meet the criteria for Merit or Excellence get those grades. There is no predetermined distribution of grades.”

Internals and externals

Page 4: Ncea and standards based education

Achievement Achievement with Merit Achievement with Excellence

Identify or describe aspects of phenomena, concepts or principles.

Give descriptions or explanations in terms of phenomena, concepts, principles and/or relationships.

Give concise explanations that show clear understanding, in terms of phenomena, concepts, principles and/or relationships.

Solve straightforward problems.

Solve problems. Solve complex problems.

What is the standard?

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Real standard◦ Finished task assessment

Virtual standard◦ Developmental assessment◦ No difference from a syllabus

Real and virtual standards

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Enables recognition of a task Qualification is independently recognised Examples

◦ Driving licence◦ Firearms licence◦ Radio licence◦ Athletic standards, cross country times

All finished task assessment

Real Standards

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Attempts to show development in a process Has no direct employment value Examples

◦ Level 1 physics◦ What job could you get with Level 1

Physics?◦ Level 2 physics◦ Level 3 physics◦ Physics degree (if it were NCEA)

What does achieving mean in physics?

Virtual standards

Page 8: Ncea and standards based education

Standards◦ Assess students by standards◦ Graded against standards

Process (percentage)◦ Assess students on how much they get right◦ Graded by norm referencing◦ Cohort is the standard

Standards and process assessment

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Standards assessment◦ Arbitrary since the standards have no real

meaning◦ Standard does not set the difficulty, question does

Process (percentage) assessment◦ Gives information on how much a student knows◦ Can bench mark using norm referencing

Standards and process assessment

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Which system is better for academic subjects?

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Answer from NZQA “All national exam systems have tools to

manage variation, ensuring consistency.” “PEPs are a tool for managing variation.” “PEPs consist of historical information and

results within standards and subjects.” “Statistically, for cohorts of a reasonable size,

candidate performance does not vary significantly from year to year.”

So why choose standards based assessment?

How can there be PEPs within a standards based assessment system?

Page 12: Ncea and standards based education

“Examiners cannot tell in advance how well a cohort will do, on untrialled questions.” Elley

“NZQA had no mechanism in place to prevent year-to-year and subject-to-subject variation and seemed not to believe that it was necessary to have such a mechanism.” Nash

“A norm-referenced reality always underpins criterion referenced standards in the educational system.” Nash

NCEA and benchmarking

Page 13: Ncea and standards based education

“NCEA’s supporters, including NZQA, the Ministry of Education, and the PPTA, are reluctant to concede that that re-marking to maintain expected ‘profiles’ introduces a form of norm-referencing and, being concerned to defend the examination against criticism that threatens to undermine public confidence in it, have no interest in debating the point.” Nash

“Remarking is not scaling, but the technique is used to generate a distribution of grades more or less consistent between subjects and years, and is thus simply an expensive way of accomplishing the same outcome.” Nash

Has NCEA even been assessment based?

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Answer from NZQA “Markers must follow the assessment schedule (mark

scheme) that has been finalised by the panel leader.“ “This occurs after a substantial sample of answer booklets

have been marked by the panel leader and a senior marker, giving an idea of the spread of performance to be expected (referred to as setting the standard).”

Why is this important in standards based assessment?

“The published assessment schedules are the ones finalised by the panel leaders and applied by markers.”

“Teachers use these to identify the answers allowable for that particular exam.”

Are the published mark schemes rigidly followed or is marker discretion allowed? 

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Has NCEA ever been assessment based?◦ PEPs◦ GSM

Are internals the same difficulty as externals?

How does NCEA compare with Cambridge and IB?

Why are schools implementing the above programs?

Have universities noticed an improvement in pupils since the introduction of NCEA?

NCEA in practice

Page 22: Ncea and standards based education

No real standards exist for physics Standards are used as a syllabus NCEA Ptolemaic Standards lead to the “right” answer (solve problems, no method

marks) Right answer encourages spoon feeding Mark schemes procrustean NCEA via PEPs leads to arbitrary grades Arbitrary results demotivates able pupils Low level of achievement hides lack of skills and knowledge at

bottom (about 16% to pass in maths) NCEA gets pupils to university, does it keep them there? NCEA pupils disadvantaged in competitive courses NZ university entry very low compared to rest of world (120

points; 4 AS levels at D grade)

Summary

Page 23: Ncea and standards based education

A Change of Direction for NCEA: On Re-marking, Scaling and Norm-referencing Roy Nash

Fixing the NCEA: Ongoing problems, current reforms and proposed changes http://www.maxim.org.nz/files/pdf/policy_paper_ncea_reforms.pdf

Further reading