The effects of consistency of performance on a level examiners' judgementsof standards

One source of evidence used for the setting of minimum marks required to ob tain grades in General Certificate of Education (GCE) examinations is the q ualitative, expert judgement of examiners. The effect of consistency of can didates' performance across questions within an examination paper upon exam iners' judgements of grade worthiness was investigated, for A level examina tions in two subjects. After controlling for mark and individual examiner d ifferences, significant effects of consistency were found. The pattern of r esults differed in the two subjects. In biology, inconsistent performance p roduced lower judgements of grade-worthiness than consistent or average per formance. In sociology, very consistent performance was preferred over aver age consistency. The results of this study showed that a feature of the exa mination performance that was not part of the marking scheme affected gradi ng decisions. It is concluded that examiners' judgements of standards shoul d be supported by other sources of evidence, such as examination statistics .