• Foreword
• Background
• Purposes

Foreword

QCA, as the regulator for qualifications in England, must not only ensure that GCE and GCSE standards are maintained over time and across Awarding Bodies, but must be seen to do so. The Five-Yearly Review of standards reports are published in their original, technical language to ensure complete transparency of both the process and the outcome.

The programme of Five Yearly Reviews supplements Awarding Bodies' year-on-year standard setting processes and is designed to maintain standards. No process can ensure that standards are maintained exactly over time; nor could any investigation decide precisely the extent of any changes. The retrospective findings of the Review means that in some cases revised syllabuses were being taught by the time the reports were completed.

It is important to take the reports as a complete picture, rather than drawing generalised conclusions from some findings of a particular report. This paper explains the importance of the reviews in the quality control of existing examinations and the quality assurance of future ones.

Background

In his Review of Qualifications for 16-19 Year Olds (1996) Lord Dearing made several recommendations to ensure that 'there is a basis and accepted procedure... for monitoring and safeguarding standards over time'. In the same year, SCAA (one of QCA's predecessors) and Ofsted jointly recommended that there should be:

'... a rolling programme of reviews on a five-year cycle to ensure examination demands and grade standards are being maintained in all major subjects.' (Standards in Public Examinations 1975 to 1995, p4)

The Five-Yearly Review of standards programme implements the recommendations. Standards in A level and GCSE examinations are investigated by QCA in collaboration with the regulatory authorities for Wales and Northern Ireland (ACCAC and CCEA).

This set of publications comprises 14 reports, seven on GCSE and seven on A level examinations. They describe work carried out by QCA over the last three years. These reports add to the eight (four each on A level and GCSE) published in 1999.

Purposes

The overall aim of the programme is to determine any action needed to safeguard examination standards through monitoring examination requirement and grade standards over time. This aim has two dimensions in the determination of any change over time:

• the requirement of syllabuses and their assessment instruments (examination requirement);
  
• the level of performance required of candidates at key grades (grade standard).

The use of the term "standards" can be confusing if used as shorthand for the yardstick by which educational requirements are judged and the performance required at a level of achievement. The headline Standards for 16 year-olds are rising may mean that a higher level of achievement is required to obtain a certain level of pass, or that more people are reaching a certain level of achievement than in the past. It could be both; the standard itself may rise as well as the number of students reaching the standard.

Thus it is important to:

(a) analyse the nature of the requirements different examinations make on candidates
(b) compare the levels of performance required for a particular grade
(c) consider how these two elements relate to each other.