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CATEGORIES:Current Issues in Assessment
SUMMARY:Ensuring comparability in a diverse and unregulate
 d qualifications market - Professor Robert Coe (Ce
 ntre for Evaluation and Monitoring\, Durham Univer
 sity)
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20110428T153000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20110428T170000
UID:TALK28393AThttp://talks.cam.ac.uk
URL:http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/28393
DESCRIPTION:The aim of reducing central regulation of qualific
 ations and allowing a range of different providers
  to offer the qualifications they judge to be appr
 opriate may have educational benefits\, as well as
  fitting with current political directions. Agains
 t this\, the pressure for regulation comes partly 
 from the need to ensure comparability of standards
  across different specifications\, subjects and qu
 alification types. How can we reconcile these conf
 licting demands? Can we reduce regulation and allo
 w a diverse range of qualifications\, but still ma
 intain comparability?\n\nIn this talk Professor Co
 e will propose a structure for doing this. The sta
 rting point is that there is no such thing as abso
 lute comparability\, only comparability for a spec
 ific purpose. For key purposes such as using quali
 fications to select applicants to higher education
 \, or for school accountability\, there are a numb
 er of statistical models that can be used to defin
 e comparability at the point of use\, rather than 
 in the process of awarding. These would allow awar
 ding bodies to define\, judge and certify outcomes
  as they see fit\, but then to assign different va
 lues to those certified outcomes (eg grades) accor
 ding to their relevance to the particular purpose 
 being considered. Examples will be given\, togethe
 r with a discussion of pros and cons of different 
 approaches.\n
LOCATION:Cambridge Assessment\, 9 Hills Road\, Cambridge
CONTACT:Liz Ford
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