Students Grades in Great Britain Calculated by an Algorithm
| Students Grades in Great Britain Calculated by an Algorithm | |
|---|---|
| Short Title | An Algorithm Downgraded Students Grades in Great Britain |
| Location | Great Britain |
| Date | August 2020 |
| Solove Harm | Exclusion |
| Information | Knowledge and Belief, Professional |
| Threat Actors | Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation |
| Individuals | |
| Affected | Students in Great Britain |
| High Risk Groups | Students |
| Tangible Harms | |
The regulator of qualifications in Great Britain (Ofqual) created an algorithm to grade students when the exams were cancelled due to the global pandemic. The grades that were awarded by the algorithm resulted in around 40% of student grades being downgraded.
Description
In Summer 2020 students in Great Britain were awarded grades in GCSEs, AS and A levels, calculated by an algorithm built by the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. This was supposed to give students the opportunity to move on to further study or employment, despite the cancellation of exams (due to COVID19 pandemic).
It appeared that around 40% of the A level grades awarded by the algorithm fell below the teacher predictions for the student in that subject.
It happened because contrary to what students have expected, teacher predictions were never the starting point for the awarded grades. In many cases, they didn’t even form part of the calculation. Instead, the system was designed to give an overall distribution of grades that looked similar to previous years, with similar numbers of A*, A, and all the other grades for each subject — though they did allow more A and A* grades than usual. OfQual even went so far as to check that the proportion of grades handed out to different subpopulations (by gender, ethnicity and deprivation, for example) would look similar to recent years.
This can be interpreted as Exclusion.
The National Union of Students (NUS) organised protests in six cities over ongoing inequalities in the fallout of the crisis and concerns that disadvantaged students will be forced to take gap years.
Laws and Regulations
Sources
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ofqual-publishes-more-details-on-appeals-and-confirms-autumn-exam-arrangements
https://unherd.com/2020/08/how-ofqual-failed-the-algorithm-test/