Dear Tanya

Thank you for the excellent article on QLD’s assessment system.

I am a Physics teacher and I would like to add my comments of dissatisfaction with our syllabuses and the assessment system.

The QSA’s Physics and Chemistry syllabuses lack consistency. Schools are allowed to choose what topics they teach and to what depth they teach these topics. While one school may spend 10 weeks teaching electricity another may spend one week on it.  While one school may spend a semester on nuclear and quantum physics another may not teach these topics at all.  No two schools follow the same work program, or the same topics, or the same assignments or the same exams. This makes comparison of performance between schools impossible. This also makes the system unfair to the students.

The syllabuses overvalue assignments and reports and undervalue exams.  A school can conduct just one 60-minute exam on any one topic and 3 assignments in a year and still satisfy the syllabus requirements. Furthermore, the syllabus requires the exams and the assessment items be equally weighted. Thus, a 2-page assignment report, often written by the student’s teacher, has the same worth as a 2-hour exam taken at the end of a semester. Wealthy students who can afford tutors, get high grades in these reports thereby inflating their overall grades. I know of a student who regularly gets Ds and low Cs in the exams and A’s in the assignments and reports, thanks to the student’s private tutor. I strongly advise my students’ parents they consider employing a tutor to assist with the student’s reports. A student’s achievement is determined not by what the student knows but by what the tutor knows.

Analytical skills in Physics and Chemistry are undervalued. One of the syllabus criteria says that a student can obtain an A grade in that criterion by presenting scientific ideas to make meaning accessible to intended audiences through innovative use of range of formats. Thus, a good essay writing skill is required if a student wants a good grade in science.

Almost all teachers, lecturers and professors agree that what is expected of our students in the Extended Experimental Investigations (EEIs) is beyond what is normally expected of a 2nd or 3rd year university student. Students have great difficulty in making sense of the criteria statements, with starting an EEI, in carrying out the experiment in a way to satisfy the syllabus criteria requirements and in writing a report to fit in with the criteria statements. The system disadvantages students who cannot afford tutors.

The marking system is pathetic. For every assessment item teachers have to follow a grid system consisting of up to 45 criteria statements and allocate a grade from E to A for each part of each question. These criteria statements are vaguely worded in the syllabus and are open to vastly different interpretation. Here is an example: To get an A grade the student needs to explore a scenario; to get a B grade the student needs to explain the scenario and to get a C grade the student needs to analyse the scenario. What is an A to one teacher can be a C or D to another. These statements mean little to the students.

The syllabuses prohibit averaging of grades. If a student receives C, C, C, C, B, B, A, A in a criterion, one teacher can argue the student is at the A level since the student has demonstrated an A level ability. In fact this is what the syllabus implies. Another teacher can argue the student is at the B level since the average grade would be closer to B than to A or to C. A third teacher can argue the student is at the C level, since that is the most consistent grade for the student. We need to get rid of this ridiculous system and replace it with a mark-based system. A student’s grade should depend on his or her performance and not on which teacher grades the paper.

Preparing exam papers and assignments under the current syllabuses takes up enormous amount of time because teachers have to massage the questions in such a way that everyone, including those who are not analytically skilled, can experience success. Eg. some answers need to be open ended and in an essay form with arguments and counterarguments. Many brilliant questions requiring proper analysis cannot be asked under this syllabus simply because they don’t conform to the criteria statements and it will take a lot of time and effort to modify the questions to conform to these criteria statements.

Marking of assignments and exam papers also take up enormous time. Typically it takes about an hour to mark an exam paper or an assignment. This is because teachers need to consider each statement in the student’s response to see which of the 45 vaguely worded and sometimes irrelevant criteria statements the student has fully/partly/inadequately met. A non-criteria based system will not only reduce the marking time considerably, it will also give a more accurate estimate of the student’s overall ability.

The verification process is unreliable, unfair, work intensive and full of inconsistencies. What passes as an exemplar in one year by a panel member gets severely criticised in the following year by another member from the same region. What passes as an A level question for one school is criticised as a C level question for another school. While one panel member may regard a profile as of a HA7 standard another may regard it as of a SA1 standard. What passes as a VHA standard in one region is classed as a SA standard in another. This system is extremely unreliable in determining student abilities. It is no surprise then no other educational institutions in Australia or anywhere in the world uses it or uses anything closely resembling it. This is a pathetic system.

Internal exams are open to fraud. Some teachers give their students revision exam papers that are identical or very similar to the actual exam paper. Some schools allow their students to take their notes with them to the exam.  These tactics are not disclosed to the panel. Teaching to the exam is another strategy many schools adopt in order to maximise their students’ grades. The system encourages these practices. There are dozens of other irregularities that schools exploit under our current assessment system. The panel members have 2 hours to verify a school’s submission. They neither have the skills nor the resources to determine if a fraud has been committed. This system is unfair to the students, teachers and the schools.

Internal exams also tilt the teacher-student power too much in favour of the teacher. The students are too scared to question or challenge the teacher, lest they are unjustly penalised for their behaviour and actions. The students are totally confused as to what exactly they need to do in order to get good grades. It is as if they are playing a game which follows a hazy set of rules and in which the goal posts are constantly moved.

It is my sincere hope that the new Minister for Education, the Honourable John-Paul Langbroek, will take action to improve the assessment system in Queensland.