One of the things that irritates me every year is the way in which A Level results are used as a political football.
It's the same story each August, with someone (usually the Tories or a right-wing journalist) claiming that they are getting easier every year. In fact, it's usually the same Tory or journalist who spends the other 51 weeks of the year complaining how school standards are dropping! This begs the obvious question of what they would say if the results got worse...
The first thing I would say is that the day should be given over to the (usually) young people and their families and the teachers who've worked hard to help them learn. For many it is a great day, without public figures sniping from the sidelines. For others it is disappointment that they haven't done as well as hoped, and the last thing they need to hear is that A Levels are getting easier. So please put a sock in it those who would seek to detract.
The second thing I would say is that A Levels are changing, but this is a good thing. It would be a very hard position for someone to argue that teaching methods and facilities were better a generation or two ago. Our young people are learning different things in different ways now, and in some subjects there is simply a lot more to learn. To try and compare an A Level today with even those I took in 1991 is a fool's errand of the first order.
Thursday, 14 August 2008
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7 comments:
Far be it from me to disappoint you:
Herewith a link to an analysis of A-level grades achieved by students with the same ITDA scores.
Roughly speaking, today's exams are
two grades less difficult than those taken by the previous generation.
For those who don't know James, he is the Tory who came fourth against me in Cotham in 2007. And, as predicted, up he pops on A Level day to tell all the young people in the ward that they aren't as clever as he was!
I don't know where to start. In fact, the only thing that the linked-to graph shows with any certainty is that the A Level marks were in abject chaos under the last Tory government and have stabilised somewhat under Labour!
As I understand the research he links to, it appears to be saying that people of the same score in a generalised ability test are now getting two grades higher than before. For someone with a grounding in statistics, it should be very apparent that this is not the same as saying that the exams are two grades easier.
Your chickens and eggs are all over the place and your sheep and goats are running riot, my dear chap!
There are many possible explanations just to this phenomenon. For example, maybe schools are better at preparing young people for exams - this is often something leveled at private schools in particular. Or maybe there are components of 'ability' which aren't measured by the test, like the application of knowledge or lateral thinking. Better handling of dyslexia could account for the differences - 20 years ago it was largely sink or swim, but now the education system is now able to offer more support to people who seem less 'able' on ability tests.
Given the many years of controversy about the use of IQ testing, it may simply be that this measure of generalised ability is flawed. Without looking at it in detail, it could be culturally specific, so as you have had more diverse people taking A Levels, their apparent abilities have been lower on this measure. You only have to look at that bloke at Leeds who uses IQ tests to 'prove' that black people are less intelligent to see the pitfalls.
Or maybe there is a horrid leftie conspiracy to make exams easier. As I said in the post, it's a fool's errand to try to come up with simple just-so stories on this. You just aren't comparing like for like.
(For those who've not looked at my profile, outside of politics, I am a research fellow at the School of Education at UWE. I specialise in the interface between school and university and about cultural aspects of education and learning).
I'm not a Tory but the only likely explanation I can see is that the exams have got easier. With almost 50% gaining A or B to argue otherwise seems perverse.
However I'm more concerned with the outcomes of this (from the Telegraph) -
- "analysis of the results shows improvements are driven almost entirely by the success of the independent sector and selective grammar schools" -
- " Private schools are likely to tighten their grip on the best institutions after numbers going to Oxford and Cambridge increased last year." -
- "many universities complain that the rise in top grades is making it almost impossible to select the best candidates."
In the absence of an examination system capable of differentiating between the ordinary and the exceptional, it seems the best universities are just looking at so-called "personal qualities" and selecting people like themselves - ie. the wealthy, privileged and privately educated.
Who's gaining from this nonsense?
Hi there BB - welcome aboard. Don't think anyone would accuse you of being a Tory! I think you've hit on the more important issue in lots of ways.
The first thing I would say is that your second point undermines your first slightly. If the private schools are able to 'prime' kids in some way which gives them an advantage, then this could itself produce better results and seemingly 'easier' exams. It isn't necessarily the schools either - it can actually be that richer families pay for extra cramming outside of school and so forth.
From a statistician's perspective it is important not to confuse a relationship with cause-and-effect. I could probably correlate A Level results with the crime rate in Norwich, the price of Starbucks latte or the temperature of the Greenland ice sheet if you gave me twenty minutes! It doesn't mean that one explains the other.
So, Question 1 is why can private schools secure better results? Is it just a better learning environment? Or are they doing something process-based what is giving them an advantage, like focusing just on functionally learning how to do exams questions rather than wider learning of the subject?
Question 2 arises from an interesting finding from some of the research around university withdrawals ('drop-outs' as the media puts it). There is some evidence that private school students can often struggle at university, especially early on. The data isn't great yet, so it needs more work to understand. Is it, though, that pushing people into getting great A Level grades actually disadvantages them at the next stage. In that favourite phrase of academics, more research is needed!
On the pragmatic point, it is increasingly difficult for universities to distinguish high achievers. Three quick points. First, I would abolish A Levels anyway for a wider curriculum. Secondly, better results don't necessarily mean easier exams. Thirdly, universities have other issues about admissions and the system needs an overhaul. For example, look at the role of the 'personal statement' and 'school reference' and ask yourself which sorts of people and schools might know how to play these for best advantage.
Hope this helps!
One should always be careful not to use statistics as a drunk uses a lamp post - for support rather than illumination.
So I shall defer to your expert knowledge of educational statistics, as demonstrated in the seminal paper Young Participation in Higher Education
A sociocultural study of educational engagement in Bristol South parliamentary constituency.
Clearly the most plausible rationale for 97% of students now passing their exams is better teaching.
Let's put aside political differences here in Lake Wobegon - wait, no it's Bristol - and strive to make sure that all of our young people are above average.
I would however contend that I am regrettably less well educated than my elder brother, or my father and possibly my grandfather. On the plus side, I'm pretty sure I'm better educated than was my great-grandfather. But I'm not as clever as any of them.
- "For example, look at the role of the 'personal statement' and 'school reference' and ask yourself which sorts of people and schools might know how to play these for best advantage." -
Indeed school reference appears to be vital to Oxbridge/Russell Group entrance. I blogged on this quite recently and the stats are damning:
- 100 elite schools - 80 fee-paying, 18 selective state grammars and two notionally comprehensive - account for one-third of all admissions to Oxbridge colleges every year.
- 200 schools account for a 48% of all Oxbridge admissions every year
- 50% of all Oxbridge entrants belong to the 7% of the population that are privately educated whether at an elite school or elsewhere
- 25% of cabinet ministers and leading politicians are Oxbridge educated
- 50% of leading journalists - especially those at the BBC and the Guardian as well as virtually every household name broadsheet columnist - are Oxbridge educated
- 85% of the senior judiciary are Oxbridge educated
We're being run by a self-perpetuating elite aren't we?
James - as a statistician by training, one of my big bugbears is the misuse or misunderstanding of statistics. Well done for finding some of my work, although the majority of that piece was Lynn's. I mainly did the stats analysis of the pupil surveys and the social history stuff. I'm working on a paper at the moment about how the government's figures for university entry by social class are a mess. I'm convinced that we're actually doing much better than we think we are.
BB - I have to come clean to avoid accusations of hypocrisy. I was a public school boy myself, albeit on a scholarship. And I tried to go to Cambridge but I fouled the interview! However, both my parents left school at 15/16, so there can be social mobility if you're lucky (or whatever) enough to pass the entry exams.
One of the things that interests me a lot is about which universities kids from lower social classes and ethnic minorities choose. I turned down a job with the Sutton Trust about ten years ago because they were adamant that bright poor kids had to go to 'the best' universities.
I did a little work a couple of years back on students who turned down offers at Bristol to go to UWE. They didn't want to go to the 'better' university because they didn't think they would fit in.
Similarly, it is well-known now that ethnic minority students are going to university in roughly the 'right' proportions (in fact, white working class men are now the 'missing' group). However, just six universities (out of 120) account for over half of all ethnic minority students. This again appears to be about fitting in.
So this is how we end up with a self-sustaining elite. Unless we socially engineer massive change within the system, it is difficult to know how to crack it. The Irish used to allocate university places by lottery (to some extent - fuzzy on the details). We can't tell students which universities they should go to in order to have a better social mix. I do think that killing or changing the statements section of the application would probably help.
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