Media Studies

This video looks at how assessments are created for GCSE and A-level Media Studies and how these can help you in your own practice. It is broken down into three areas, moving from the principles of assessment, through how these are applied by AQA within Media Studies, to how they can be applied by teachers of the subject.

Transcript

Welcome to this AQA training video exploring assessment for Media studies GCSE and A-level. My name is Steff Hutchinson, and I've worked within the media studies examining and moderation teams at AQA for a number of years. I also teach media studies at both GCSE and A-level, so I see it first-hand, how students react and respond to assessment tasks. This also means that I set tasks for my own students, as well as helping to mark and moderate the tasks set by AQA. So, I've had to understand the principles behind good assessment.

In this session, we'll look at how assessments are created for media studies GCSE and A-level, and how these can help you in your own practice. We've broken this session down into three areas. Moving from the principles of assessment, through how these are applied by AQA, within media studies, to how you can apply these yourself.

Let's move straight into part one, exploring what makes a good assessment task, and a quick summary of AQA's General Training Session on assessment principles. As stated in that training, academic assessment is a form of measurement. In our case, we want to measure the knowledge, understanding, and skills of our students, in relation to the media studies theoretical framework. And we need to ensure that that measurement is valid. In a nutshell, a valid assessment is one that measures, and only measures, what it intends to measure. We'll keep returning to this important point.

In brief, the assessment needs to be reliable, so that students of the same ability will get the same result. It needs to be able to differentiate between the students, while being accessible to the full range of student ability. By using different question types and by varying the demands of the questions. Assessment needs to avoid built-in bias. Ofqual states that bias exists when an assessment produces 'unreasonably adverse outcomes for learners who share a common attribute'. That common attribute could be gender, ethnicity, background, or even location. So, a valid assessment needs to avoid bias that would help or hinder particular groups of students.

It also needs to cover as widespread of the learning as possible, while bearing in mind that not all the learning can be assessed. In media studies, underrepresentation of constructs could occur. For example, if all analysis questions focused on print products, missing out all the other areas of the media. We need to ensure there is a more varied spread so that a fuller picture of a student's learning can be gained.

The final two aspects to consider are construct irrelevance and comparability. Construct irrelevance refers to including unintended constructs in the assessment itself, that get in the way of understanding the task. This could include convoluted language in the question. In media studies, there is a lot of subject-specific terminology to learn, and often it's the understanding of this that is being assessed in the question. So, there's a necessity for some language that would look difficult to those who've not studied the course, as it's in the specification. But we need to ensure the general language of the question doesn't create an extra challenge for students. And exam assessment needs to be comparable with other assessments of the same type, whether that's across the years, or across exam boards within a subject, or across subjects within a level of qualification.

Standards must also be maintained within assessments. In the exam papers, AQA media studies does that by using compulsory questions whenever possible. But there are some elements of choice. At A-level, centres can select their television CSPs, and their CSP choices need to give a comparable level of both challenge and opportunity. In both GCSE and A-level centres, all students have a choice of NEA briefs. Again, these must give the same level of challenge and opportunity for students to show their understanding of the theoretical framework. Bear in mind that in the NEA, students are not being assessed on their technical skills. So, although teachers may feel that there is an easier to create task, such as a magazine cover, that's not what we are assessing, and not all students would agree anyway. The real question is, is it any easier for them to show their understanding of media language, representations, audience needs, and so on?

And to finish this section, some tips for how you can use these principles in your own assessment design. The first is the one I said we will keep returning to, what exactly do you want to assess? Ensure this is what you are assessing. We look at how AQA apply that principle in the next section. Ensure you have mark schemes that are detailed enough to help you, and your colleagues, to mark to the same standard consistently, over time. And perhaps, keep examples of student work that have achieved specific marks, so you can compare future responses to these. Be mindful of the influence of bias. Consider this when choosing unseen analysis examples and in the wording of any questions you create. Would some students find the task easier than others because of their familiarity with the subject matter, genre or context chosen? Create questions that will differentiate, so they are not all too easy for your high-ability students to spread their wings. And they are not all too hard for your lower-ability students to show what they also know and can do.

Now let's look at how the AQA GCSE and A-level papers are structured to put these principles into practice. I'll take this last point about differentiation first. The bullet point prompts used in some of the GCSE 20-mark questions serve two purposes. Lower-ability students often find the longer tasks more daunting and don't know where to start. The bullet points give them both a starting point, and some aspects of scaffolding. Higher-ability students have to rise to the challenge of fully meeting all of the required material and integrating it into one coherent essay that presents their judgements and conclusions. Similarly, at A-level, questions about the validity of specific theories will contain just enough information about the theory to give students a reminder and will require evidence from a specified CSP. Thus, all students who study the course should be able to start an answer, but the higher-ability students will be able to give nuanced detail from the CSP in evidence and show a greater understanding of the theory being discussed.

Within media studies, there are just three objectives, two assist in the exams, and one in the NEA. These are the same for both GCSE and A-level, but with a couple of additions at A-level to cover academic theories. The weightings across the papers and the NEA are also the same in both qualifications. The assessment objectives are further broken down when it comes to the mark schemes. Again, these are almost the same for both GCSE and A-level. Let's have a quick look. AO1, knowledge and understanding, is broken down into two strands and each strand is broken down into two elements. Each of the elements has to be covered in both papers at GCSE. This means, for example, that both GCSE papers have to carry at least one question that asks about the context of the media and their influence on media products. AO2 is broken down more simply into two elements at GCSE and three elements at A-level, and each of these has to be assessed on both papers at GCSE and at A-level. This means that both papers have to include questions in which students are making judgements and drawing conclusions, and the ability is being explicitly assessed.

A quick look at how these supplements were assessed across the four media studies papers from June 2022 shows this in practice. At GCSE, you can easily see the different weightings on the two papers. Both are out of 84 but notice the different totals in the first two knowledge and understanding columns. And then, in the last two analysis and judgements and conclusions columns. This is why the papers are so different in format, as they are weighted to assess different skills and areas of knowledge. The two A-level papers are also out of 84, and again, this is a very different weighting across the two, with far more analysis and forming judgements required on Paper Two. Looking at how this relates to setting the questions, when it comes to the exam board creating a paper, the team starts with the assessment objectives and builds questions that address these. You've just seen grids that show how the marks were apportioned on the June 2022 papers. No matter whether it's for GCSE or for A-level, if a question should only be assessing the ability to analyse, which is the first part of AO2, then it needs to be a straightforward analysis question with no other distractions, such as, 'Explain how the specified elements make meanings in this product'. If, however, the question should also be assessing whether a student can make judgements and draw conclusions, then there needs to be an element of analysis, along with something to make judgements about. So, we might get a statement about the media format, and then the question, 'How far does an analysis of this product show this to be true?'. So, an analysis is asked for, and the 'how far' element in the question, is inviting the judgements and conclusions.

Similarly, if instead of analysis you want to assess the ability to make judgements and conclusions, along with assessing the student's knowledge and understanding of the theoretical framework. Then you end up with a question that has a statement about an area of the media, an invitation to evaluate how far the student agrees, and something specific to write about so, they can use one of the CSPs as their case study to show what they know and understand. If we look at that in practice, there are two questions here. One from the 2022 A-level, and one from the 2022 GCSE, that show how the first and last of these ideas can be applied. In the first question, which is only assessing the ability to analyse, it's a straightforward analysis with no other requirements. And in the second, where knowledge, understanding, and the ability to make judgements are all being assessed, there's a statement, an invitation to make judgements about the statement in the form of a 'how far do you agree?' question, and some bullet points to show the specific knowledge required. Applying that knowledge to the question shows the students' understanding.

To ensure that questions are fit for purpose and are matched to the assessment objectives they are intended to cover, there's a rigorous reviewing process before the exam paper is agreed. I must point out here that I'm not a part of this process. So, like you, I have no prior sight of exams. But they are matched to the criteria reviewed, revised, and even tried out by someone who's answering them without seeing them beforehand to ensure there are no misunderstandings, no bias, and no poor choices of language. And that sufficient aspects of the course have been assessed, to make the question paper a valid measure of learning on the GCSE course. The team also have to check that the exam is comparable with previous exams.

Assessment in the current specification of media studies at both A-level and GCSE is based around the CSPs, the close study products. These cover nine different media forms and should be viewed as case studies, to exemplify knowledge and understanding of the theoretical framework. At GCSE, you may have taught narrative theories when you studied the advertising CSPs, for example. But students should be able to apply these same theories to any of the products that are being studied in relation to media language and media representations, including the in-depth products. So, in the 2022 papers, for example, understanding of narrative theories were assessed at the start of Paper Two, in relation to the TV programme class. In 2023, this understanding was assessed in Paper One in relation to the Represent advert. In the 2022 A-level papers, Newsbeat and War of the Worlds were used to assess students' understanding of contexts and how these influenced media products. In 2023, the Maybelline advert and a previously unseen advert for Avon were used to assess this understanding. The 2022 question was in relation to industries and audiences. The 2023 question was in relation to language and representation, but both centered around contexts and how these affected media products. Students understanding of the theoretical framework should be transferable across the closed study products, and their analysis skills should be transferable both across the CSPs and to products that they haven't seen before. Hopefully, you can see the link between the assessment objectives being measured, and the type of question being set.

Let's turn to mark schemes. This should enable those marking the assessment tasks to reward fairly, and reward consistently. And this should include enabling the people marking the tasks to deal with unexpected responses and reward these where appropriate. AQA media studies mark schemes usually have two parts for each question. The marking grid, showing the criteria, broken down into levels, and indicative content, showing some of the areas a student might cover in their response, usually, the most expected themes and examples. At both A-level and GCSE, there is a wealth of indicative content in the mark scheme for any exam question, but there are also statements within the mark scheme showing that other responses could be valid, not only those the exam team have already thought of. The statements are straightforward at GCSE, such as 'accept any other valid response' and a little more nuanced at A-level, including 'credit should be given to alternative valid answers'. But these statements do allow those applying the mark scheme to reward students who have given a less expected, but valid, response. And in media studies, it's really important that these responses can be credited, as they could be based on very sound understanding of the theoretical framework.

AQA mark schemes, like the question papers, are also tested, reviewed, and revised, prior to the exams being taken. There's a final opportunity to amend the mark scheme once students have taken the exam for real. At the preliminary meetings about examining the paper, as the first real responses are available, the senior team make sure that the version they're using fully covers the kinds of responses that they're seeing. They can also suggest what an examiner might see at each level, based on the real examples in front of them. Examples of student responses are found from across the full mark range for each question. To ensure that examiners use this full range but expect the spread of marks to form a bell curve, if tallied across the paper as a whole. We wouldn't expect many students at all to get above 80, or to get fewer than 4 marks, but we would expect to see some.

AQA assessments are designed with a range of question types. Some questions are designed so they differentiate to the higher grades, while others should allow all learners to show their knowledge. Other questions can be attempted by all students, but the quality of their responses will differentiate between them. A 2022 GCSE question asks students to analyse the representation of the main female character in the Galaxy Chocolate TV advert. Almost all students will be able to tackle this question to some extent. As it's a fairly short marking grid, being only out of six marks, I've reproduced it here. A question we're often asked by teachers is ‘how many points should students be making in their response?’. You can see that the number of points the students make is not mentioned in the mark scheme. At all three levels of response, there is a reference to aspects of representation, but no reference to how many of these need to be covered. Instead, we're looking, here, at the quality of response. Is it basic, straightforward, or simple, at Level One? Or, satisfactory and clear at Level Two, or detailed and nuanced, at Level Three? And how good is the use of subject-specific terminology and reference to the theoretical framework, as a whole? And at GCSE, you will often see a statement in the mark scheme showing that depth and breadth are equally valid. So, a small number of points made with lots of detail, or a large number of points with less detail, both are ways of demonstrating knowledge about a topic, or demonstrating analytical skill. A well-constructed mark scheme enables AQA to ensure the exams are reliable, that full differentiation is achieved, and that the way marks are awarded is comparable across candidates, across examiners, and across time.

Let's look now at the other part of assessment in media studies, the NEA, the non-exam assessment. Students are required to create a media product at GCSE, or two related media products at A-level, following an AQA brief. That brief will state what the products should be, the nature of the intended audience, and what the media industry context is. Remember, there's only one assessment objective. However, this is broken down for assessment into four separate parts. The separate parts are almost the same across GCSE and A-level. But as you would expect, there are some extra nuances required at A-level. What's being assessed is the ability to apply the theoretical framework by creating a practical product, using deliberate choices of media language, and constructing media representations, appropriate to the brief and its contexts. In the Statement of Intent, the students set out what they intend to do. Can they write successfully and succinctly about their intended uses of media language, to create intended media representations? Can they show how this would meet the brief and meet the needs of the audience, or be interpreted by the audience? And for A-level, can they explain how they're going to exploit digital convergence between the two products, and place their products within the given industry context? If they know how they're going to do all of this, then they're in a good position to actually do it, and to pick up good marks for the production itself, because they're going to be assessed on the same areas of knowledge and understanding.

I'm part of the team that writes the briefs for GCSE, so forgive me for concentrating on those for a moment. When we set the briefs for the next cohort, there are several principles that underlie what we do. We make sure that we cover all four technologies available to centres. There are five briefs and four areas, so we'll be able to give extra choice in at least one area. And we vary which one that is from year to year. Each brief is related to at least one of the CSPs the cohort has to study, so that students have access to some prior knowledge to help them. We include an audience and a media industry context to give students a steer as to the conventions to be used. We then check for inclusivity across the set of briefs, to ensure that any student who is studying this course can create a successful response. Finally, we check for comparability, both with briefs from previous years, and across the set we're putting forward.

There are some basic building blocks we can manipulate to create the right level of complexity. The required conventions of the media format, the word count, in any text, the number of images, the length of the product, in time, or pages, the range of sound sources required, and the number of locations and characters. The media format is important because, for example, a minute from a TV documentary will be expected to include far fewer shots and other decisions than a 60-second TV advert. We have to balance these elements to ensure that all students have the opportunity to make choices that show their understanding, and the application of a theoretical framework to the same extent. The ability to meet this brief in full is assessed in production effectiveness. The same statement is included in both specifications about the use of found images, footage or text. If a student does this, then their production effectiveness mark will be capped at the top of Level Two, which is 8 marks out of 20. And just to clarify, using a found image layered with a student's own image, is still using a found image. The exemption from this is that students can use existing logos, if they're not required to create original ones. So could use Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook logos, and so on to show their understanding of how other media products are linked to social media. Both the A-level and the GCSE teams have had numerous questions about whether something is acceptable. Generally, you have to ask yourself 'if the student is using something fun from another source, what are we assessing?'. NEA assessment is intended to measure how well students can apply the theoretical framework to their own production ideas, by checking the decisions that they have made. We can't assess the found aspect as the students’ work, as they've not made the decisions within it. So, we have to assess the product as if it wasn't there. If that aspect were removed from the product, would the product still meet the requirements of the brief?

So, for example, if a student were creating a newspaper page and used a found image of a burning building for their main story, because they couldn't photograph one, then taking that photo out of the product would take out many of the meanings they wanted to convey. It might also take out the required number of images on the front page. So, putting the cap to one side for a moment, they could be penalised in effectiveness for not meeting the brief, and in media language, for not conveying meaning. It would have been better for the student to select a story that didn't require that image in the first place.

One of the key differences between NEA and exam assessment is that the NEA work is marked by staff in centres, and they're moderated by AQA teams. As I'm sure you're aware, this moderation is to ensure that all students across the country have had the mark scheme applied in the same way. The moderators have been trained to work to the agreed AQA standard, and their job is to ensure that each centre’s marks are in line with that standard, as if they've all been marked by one person. In order to do that, they need to see a sample of work throughout the full range of each center’s marks, from the highest to the lowest. I know it's frustrating to have to send your worst work, when you have much better work, you'd like to share, but it's the standard of marking that's being checked, rather than simply the quality of the work.

In the setting of NEA, CSPs, and questions, I mentioned that we look at inclusivity when we write the NEA briefs. AQA have a duty to ensure that issues of equality and diversity are borne in mind in all of their assessments. There are nine protected characteristics covered in the Equality Act of 2010, including disability, race, religion and belief, sex, age and gender, sexual orientation. By law, and to be compliant with Ofqual condition D2, but also as a moral duty, we must ensure that no student can be discriminated against on these grounds. This list is reasonably narrow and human rights and social justice groups have highlighted further characteristics that need to be considered. In light of this, AQA have identified further characteristics that should be considered. We need to think carefully about how our question papers represent and are inclusive of everyone, how they are accessible to everyone, and ensure they do not discriminate or bias certain groups over one another.

Representation of different social groups is most easily seen in our selection of CSPs, but representation of social groups is also something specifically studied within the subject. So, we have specific reasons beyond those of some subjects for selecting products with different ages, genders, sexualities, different social classes, physical abilities, or ethnicities, and so on. Just to use two music video examples, the A-level CSP, 'Old Town Road', was chosen specifically so that students could study its representation of race, gender, and sexuality. And the GCSE CSP, 'How you Like That', was chosen so that students could explore the globalisation of pop music. As the CSPs provide the context for the assessment questions, there should be no need to add further representations within the assessments themselves, except for the choice of unseen text for analysis. And again, these are specifically chosen, so that students can discuss the representations seen within them.

What do you want your assessments to do? So, this brings us onto our third and final part, looking at how you can use what we've discussed, to create your own assessments for your media studies students. A good question needs to measure what you want and nothing else, for the purpose you want. Remember to align the questions to what you're specifically assessing. If you want to measure a student's ability to analyse, then ask them for an analysis. One of the key things for students to pick up on in order to correctly interpret the question is therefore the command word, or the question stem. This tells the student what the task is, and as these are so important, they're often placed at the start of the task sentence or question, to get the students constructing the right idea about what is required. The choice of command word or question stem helps to set the level of demand, ranging from 'State' or 'give an example', needing a fairly simplistic response, all the way up to 'Analyse', or 'how valid is', leading to a more detailed and well-argued response. Command words have very specific meanings for each subject and are directly linked to the assessment objectives. AQA question writers use these command words and question stems consistently to avoid confusion. I know it's common practice already, but it really is worth sharing with students what common words and question stems mean in media studies, so that they have the best chance to interpret questions correctly.

A source of difficulty and question comprehension can be at sentence level. The more ideas or propositions included in one sentence, the harder it is to understand. If more ideas are introduced simultaneously, the demand on the working memory is greater. So, we advise avoiding propositional dense sentences. Often, this can mean actually increasing the amount students read slightly, but as you can see in the example, it breaks these ideas down. And whilst there are slightly more words, it is easier to understand. These are the tips given to AQA assessment writers. Use these yourself when writing tasks for your students. Ensure students understand what is expected in response to the command words and question stems. Where there are choices, always choose simpler language that conveys the same meaning. Use shorter sentences where you can, but not if it makes the meaning more obscure. Watch out for any ambiguity that means students can quickly misinterpret the task.

When writing assessments, there are now several sets of papers available to you, for both GCSE and A-level, to base your own questions on. Although exams weren't taken by the majority of students in 2020 and 2021, exam papers were still produced and were used in the November resits for those who weren't happy with their centre-assessed grades. This means there have been live papers for five exam series, and there are also sample papers from before this. Check the mark scheme for each paper to see what it was intending to assess. Although there are very few straightforward retrieval questions on the exam papers, feel free to use these in your lessons if you want to know how much of the factual information students have retained and how much you need to revise. However, if you want to know whether something has been understood rather than learnt by rote, get students to apply the knowledge to a new situation. Major exam papers could apply any theory or concept to any relevant CSP, or in some cases, to a previously unseen product. So, make sure you do the same, occasionally, throwing in a question that students haven't directly prepared for in class.

To give a couple of examples, if you've taught Propp’s narrative theory in relation to TV adverts, ask students to apply it to a different product, such as a newspaper story or a magazine cover. If you think they understood Steve Neil's genre theory when you studied music videos, ask them to apply the same theory when you study television or magazines. However, don't try to assess ground you've not yet covered, so don't use an existing paper as a mock, if you know you've not yet covered the key theories or CSPs asked about. And for the NEA, don't ask students to create something if they've not yet learnt the relevant conventions.

And finally, some top teaching tips, to help students approach assessment tasks positively. Thinking about these in advance should also help you to successfully frame assessment tasks for your students. Be aware that students make mistakes due to unconscious processes and working memory difficulties. Some struggle to read long questions or retain the parts they need to. Help students identify the key bits of information for answering the question and give them strategies to do this in the exams, so they don't miss bits out. Help students pause and reread questions, to prevent expectations interfering with their processing. Get them to clarify what the question is actually asking them about. Help students identify command words and question stems and form an understanding of the task. Do they need to give a judgement? Do they need to refer to denotations and connotations? Do they need to explore how a theory, or a concept can be applied? Thank you for exploring assessment in media studies with me. I hope you found it useful.

Questions you may want to think about

• How can you use these insights to prepare your learners for exams?
• Do your internal assessments reflect the approach of the exam? To what extent do you want them to?
• What’s the most important or surprising thing that you’ve learned? How might it influence your teaching?