Carry on examining: further investigation

Abstract

This paper follows on from work by Tremain (2011) and Meadows (2004) on examiner satisfaction and looks at the difference in intentions to continue examining between examiners with experiences of different marking media and modes of delivery of standardisation.

A postal questionnaire was distributed and a response rate of 40.32% was achieved (n = 1210). The questionnaire consisted of three sections: section 1 contained 14 demographic items, section 2 contained 35 items concerning experiences of examining, and section 3 consisted of 25 items related to examiner personality. Analyses suggested that there was no significant difference in intentions to continue between examiners with different experiences of standardising (online, face-to-face, or both).

For marking media, too few respondents had marked online only for this group to be included in the analysis, but a significant difference in intentions to continue was found between examiners who had marked using both media and those who had only marked on paper only, with those who had marked on paper only having lower intentions to continue.

However, the effect size was small and the difference in the medians was only 0.33, suggesting the difference has limited practical utility. Moreover, the results of this study must be interpreted with caution due to methodological limitations, such as the potential confounds of subject and length of experience, which make it difficult to understand the cause of such a difference, and difficulties accurately classifying standardisation experiences.

How to cite

Tremain, K. (2012). Carry on examining: further investigation. Manchester: AQA Centre for Education Research and Policy.

Keywords

• Examiners