WHATS IN A NAME - EXPERIMENTS WITH BLIND MARKING IN A-LEVEL EXAMINATIONS

A-level results have a substantial impact upon candidates' futures and it is crucial that the results are as fair as possible. Candidates' n ames appear on examination scripts and same have suggested that this c ould produce bias in the marking. Introduction of 'blind marking' in A -level examinations would be unwieldy and costly. Two experiments on b lind marking were carried out: in A-level Chemistry and A-level Englis h literature. In each study, presentation (and not the content) of 30 scripts was varied. Eight Chemistry A-level examiners and 16 English l iterature A-level examiners took part in the studies. Scripts were pre sented as blind or non-blind, with a male or female name and 'male' or 'female' handwriting. The studies addressed the issue of possible gen der bias in marking and investigated whether blind marking could overc ome gender bias. It was concluded that bias was not present in the mar king and therefore no support was found for the introduction of blind marking in A-level examinations.