Sociology

This video focuses on how general assessment principles are applied in A-level Sociology. It looks at the language of assessment, including the use of command words, the importance of stimulus materials in question design and the different approaches to mark schemes.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to this Advanced Level Sociology assessment training. The purpose of this assessment training is to illustrate how our mark schemes and question papers are designed in order to achieve valid assessments. Hopefully, you have seen our video on the general principles of assessment. If so, you'll be familiar with the key terms such as validity, reliability and comparability. In this video, I'm going to look at how those general principles are specifically applied to sociology. In particular, I'm going to look at the scope of assessment by looking at the relationship between the specification and assessment materials; to understand the language of assessment in order to write appropriate questions and produce useful practice assessments; to illustrate how the items – that is, the short contexts that occur before the questions – are important in the design of the assessment process. From this training session, it should enable you to be empowered to write your own mark schemes for when you assess your own sociology students.

Here is a reminder of the key principles of assessment that was covered in the general training session. Let's bear these important principles in mind as we look more specifically at assessment in sociology at Advanced Level. The focus of this training will be on how we achieve validity for when assessing students who have studied our A-level sociology course.

When considering the assessment process, the specification content for A-level sociology is always the starting point. We can only ask questions on the content of the 7192 specification. So, for a particular assessment question, it is important to consider the detailed content of each topic and look closely at the wording at the start of each section. For example, for the compulsory topic of education, students are expected to be familiar with sociological explanations of the following content: The role and functions of the education system, including its relationship to the economy and the class structure; differential educational achievement of social groups by social class, gender and ethnicity in contemporary society.

It is also important to look at the general points at the start of each section, too. Here you can see that there are quite broad expectations of what students should be able to do throughout the whole of the section. For instance, in their study of education, students should examine education in relation to the core themes of socialisation, culture and identity, social differentiation, power and stratification. The wording of the individual points for the content – two examples would be from a section of the compulsory topic of education. These are, firstly: Relationships and processes within schools, with particular reference to teacher-pupil interactions; pupil identities and subcultures; the hidden curriculum and the organisation of teaching and learning; as well as the significance of educational policies – including policies of selection, marketisation and privatisation and policies to achieve greater equality of opportunity or outcome – for an understanding of the structure, role, impact, and experience of and access to education. Also, the impact of globalisation on educational policy.

The teaching guide provides further elaboration.  This resource has been designed to provide additional detailed support in delivering the specification by listing indicative content taught for each of the specification topic areas. It also has provided suggestions of sociologists that teachers and students may wish to engage with. The teaching guide, therefore, is a point of reference in the creation of mark schemes, and thus in the assessment of sociology. The wording of the specification content largely determines the wording of a question. This will be illustrated when we look at some of the questions that have been previously asked to assess students of sociology, in order that they can demonstrate, of course, their knowledge and understanding of sociological theories, concepts and evidence, as well as sociological research methods, and then apply sociological theories, concepts, evidence and research methods to a range of issues. Also, they are assessed in terms of analysing and evaluating sociological theories, concepts, evidence and research methods in order to present arguments, make judgements and draw conclusions.

Now let's consider command words. You will be familiar with various command words, but you might not be aware that these are a published list of acceptable commands for use in sociology, and therefore in the assessment of sociology and the creation of each of the questions found on each of the three papers. It is important to think carefully about whether the command word you are using matches the topic content, because some areas of the specification are not always suited to certain common words. These can be seen when looking at these question styles. This also relates to the Assessment Objectives that are being focused on. This will be covered a little later when considering the ways a particular question is addressing certain Assessment Objectives.

Once you have decided on a suitable question, you need to think about the tariff. That is, how many marks should your question be worth? Again, the specification should be your guide. If an idea – concept – is minimal in relation to the overall topic content, then it would probably not be sensible to over-assess this small part of the specification using a high tariff question. An example of this would be: 'Outline two material factors that may affect social class differences in educational achievement.’

Integral elements and the core themes should also be considered when constructing assessments in sociology. In all three papers, students should draw on their understanding of the core themes. The core themes, as set out in the specification, should provide the integrating element for both papers. Don't forget that the specification is synoptic. This requires students to make links between topics and the core themes. The creation of your own mark schemes is possible by using the templates from previous series. These can be found on our website.

The exams will measure how students have achieved the following Assessment Objectives. Beginning with AO1: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of sociological theories, concepts and evidence. Also, sociological methods. Then we have AO2, where students are asked to apply sociological theories, concepts, evidence and research methods to a range of issues. Then finally, Assessment Objective Three, which requires students to analyse and evaluate sociological theories, concepts, evidence and research methods in order to present arguments, make judgements and draw conclusions.

So, if we consider how these are assessed on Paper One, for Question One, worth four marks, it is focused on testing Assessment Objective One – that's knowledge and understanding of an aspect of the education specification content. Whereas if we look at Question Three, it is focused on all three of the Assessment Objectives; three, four and three marks respectively. The commands for each question, then, are key as to what Assessment Objectives are being addressed, and ultimately what the students are being assessed on. Research methods used by sociologists are assessed in the context of an education setting.

Here are three examples of these style of questions, which are assessing all the three Assessment Objectives as well as referring to the subject specification content. Consider the questions posed. Each of these questions is assessing all of the Assessment Objectives to varying degrees. AO1, AO2 – eight marks each – and AO3, four marks. The specific mark scheme would provide further elaboration. Stimulus materials in the form of 'items' are used in line with the format of the three A-level Sociology papers. Stimulus items for sociology are text-based only, and should be phrased in a straightforward, accessible language. The items should serve as a prompt to students for them to address relevant issues in their answer. They should be of a similar length to that which appears in the specimen question papers. Here is an example from Paper Two. To construct these items, first of all you should provide ‘hooks’ for students to hang their points on. Second, your ‘stem’ should be focused. Do not include unnecessary or irrelevant material.

So, let's now consider some questions. Which of these questions would be appropriate or not for assessing A-level Sociology students and why?  We shall begin with a question based on an item. As shown here by these key points, clearly there are some real issues with the design of this question. To ensure that this question is a valid one, it would need to be amended in many ways. The item needs to be rewritten so that it is accessible to all students. There should be hooks included that prompt students to respond appropriately to the question. The question itself should use the correct command word, as well as focusing on gender differences and interactions within a classroom setting. That means matching up with the material that's in the item. It should read something like this: 'Applying material from Item A, analyse two reasons for gender differences in educational achievement.’ That would be, of course, worth 10 marks. Consider whether any of these questions are valid. It is worth remembering that the format of the papers for A-level Sociology does not change year on year. So, for example, Question One on Paper One will always be the same command word, same Assessment Objective and the same mark tariff. You should consider whether the command word is consistent with what we use in A-level Sociology, and you should also consider whether a given topic is covered in the specification.

Those with ticks beside them are fine for the reasons stated on this slide, in that the command is as used in order to assess a particular Assessment Objective as stipulated in the specification. Those with crosses are not appropriate since they are not the commands used by this specification, and as a way of assessing students of sociology at A-level. Also worthy of note is that the sociological concept term used in a question must be within the specification content. Those that are not valid questions would be, if changed accordingly. Here is a highlighted example of an application type question. Notice how each provides a hook from which the student can formulate their response. Highlighted are the more obvious hooks from the item. There can be two applications from one hook. For example, how teachers may affect the identity of pupils around ethnicity, gender, or social class groups.

Now let's look in some detail at writing mark schemes. Before you even start to write a question, you should think about what you would put on the mark scheme. Knowing what you want the answer to look like will determine the wording of the question. You will need to decide whether to use a points-based or a levels-based mark scheme. Points-based mark schemes are used for what we call constrained questions – that is, when the correct answers are clearly defined and each correct answer directly corresponds to a mark. Whereas level of response mark schemes are better suited to unconstrained questions – that is, those where students have more freedom in how they respond. Points-based mark schemes work on a mark-per-correct point approach. Levels of response are based on a holistic approach, where we consider a student's response as a whole using descriptors. The descriptor for each level shows the average performance for the level. Indicative content is also provided beneath the level of response grid as supporting guidance only. Levels grids are used for the extended response questions.

For this question from a Paper One, here is an example of a points-based mark scheme for it. Answers that would be credited are as follows: ‘Laddish subcultures’ – one mark – followed ‘by boys are more likely to join anti-school subcultures that prevent them from achieving’ – a further mark. They could also respond by saying, for one mark, ‘changes in the job market’. A further mark would include ‘more jobs for women or the decline in traditional men's jobs increase girls’ and reduce boys’ motivation to achieve’. Another point that would receive a mark is ‘leisure pursuits’. A further mark would be given, for example, in saying that girls’ leisure often involves a ‘bedroom culture’ of talking with friends which develops their communication skills. Finally, another point that could be raised that would be creditworthy would be the reduction of coursework, for one mark. Then, if they went on to say this reduces the advantage in achievement that girls had through being better organised and taking care of their work, that would also give them another mark. We should also bear in mind that other relevant material would be credited on a mark-per-mark basis.

Under the levels grid will be the expected content of an answer. Here are the key issues to consider in their construction. The indicative content sets out the most likely commonly made points students might make in response to the set question. The skills are usually presented as separate sets of bullet points. Try to give enough information to be helpful, but not too much to overwhelm. Providing too few potential answers or too little information means you are unlikely to cover a broad enough range of responses to cover what you are likely to see in student responses. Whereas providing too many potential answers, too much information, makes the mark scheme unwieldy and hard to use. Here is an example taken from a Paper Two question from topic one: Culture and Identity. It clearly shows what material is relevant and should be credited. This is how the level of response mark scheme was broken down into each of the levels, each of which has a descriptor. The descriptor for the level shows the average performance for the level. There are marks in each level.

In this session, we have looked at: How to word assessment questions appropriately; the link between the sociology specification and assessment questions; what to do, what not to do when creating questions; and how to approach writing mark schemes. I hope you have found this session useful, and that it has given you some ideas for creating your own quality assessment materials for use with your students. Thanks for watching.

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?