"Food for thought" 4
Graças aos bons ofícios de DK, sempre atenta a estas questões, chegou ao meu conhecimento um texto, publicado no Guardian, relativo aos resultados dos exames GCSE na Grã-Bretanha. Sem querer dizer que com o mal dos outros podemos nós bem, e porque a questão tem relevância para a realidade do ES português, ora atentem no seguinte excerto do artigo:
[...]
First, there was the explicit policy and encouragement of 'positive marking'. This was the first time I had heard this phrase but when it was explained to me in my examiner's training I was horrified that this was an official marking policy. In a nutshell, examiners are told that candidates should not be marked down or have marks taken off for incorrect answers and should only be awarded marks for what they have answered correctly. In practice, this meant that a student could write a whole A4 page of inarticulate nonsense or incorrect statements and yet, if there was a couple of sentences in that response which were correct, the student would be awarded the full mark for that particular question.
We were also advised that marks could not be taken off for poor spelling, writing or punctuation. This marking policy was then further exacerbated by the extremely basic mark scheme we were provided with. Most questions only had the choice of four different levels of mark (zero, two, three or four) or at most, five different levels. Combined with the policy of positive marking, this meant that students who gave reasonable responses were getting the same top mark as those rare students who were giving excellent responses. Conversely, those students who on the whole appeared to have extremely poor written skills with a little bit of knowledge about the exam subject were getting the same marks as someone who gave an average written response.
Guidance as to what mark to give a response was minimal and often vague. There was very little, if no, emphasis on making sure candidates were making correct statements or using correct quotes. As a result, most students could have made things up in their responses without being marked down for it or even noticed. When more information to help with the marking was sought by the exam markers it was not forthcoming. As I routinely handed out good marks to both average and excellent students I realised that something was fundamentally unfair about the whole process but that there was nothing I could do about it.
Halfway through the marking, we were called to a meeting with one of the principal examiners from the examining board, who expressed his concern that one of the questions we were marking was getting too low marks. When someone expressed their opinion that this was because the level of responses was pretty poor, the examiner stated that we were supposed to be positive marking (implying that we needed to be more generous with our marking than we currently were).
There seemed to be some kind of unspoken pressure on the examining board to make sure their exam papers gave schools the results they were after as opposed to making sure standards were kept high and consistent.
[...]
Dá que pensar, não dá?
It really is that bad
(há uma entrada paralela relativa ao mesmo assunto no Bioquímica (s)em rede)
Comentário(s)
...pois é professor, lá por terras de sua majestade as coisas também correm mal. esperemos por uma notícia ou uma nota na nossa imprensa acerca do texto, mas como só interessam os estudos onde portugal aparece na cauda vai ser uma longa espera. e os estudos que aparecem? são todos fidedignos? o melhor do texto ainda são os critérios de correcção.
Posted by: Luiz Vasco | agosto 25, 2005 07:15 PM
E como é que se conjuga o "supposed to be positive marking (implying that we needed to be more generous with our marking than we currently were)" com "standards were kept high and consistent"?
e não me consola o mal dos outros...
Posted by: LN | agosto 30, 2005 09:21 PM