h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>"So you can only really compare like with like."

You can do more than that.
You can look at what the numbers are in any given year and say:

"Most of the people getting a B in maths at A level in 2006 were below average in performance." (*Maybe* that average has actually improved radically, but I'd argue that the only real judges of that are the people having to take the students next. I don't believe the examination boards can be trusted at all to ensure consistency of standards. I don't recall hearing many lecturers stating they reckon their students are getting brighter or better-educated.)

or you can accept that students haven't evolved radically better brains in 13 years and say:

"The best B/worst A grade student of 2006 in Biology or Chemistry or Physics or Science would have been close to the bottom of the B grade if they had studied and been examined 13 years previously.
In Maths, the modern best B student would have had to be lucky to even get a B in 1993.
In Economics, the lower quarter of the modern A grade students would have got a C if they had been taught and examined in 1993."

It really seems unlikely that students have got *that* much smarter in half a generation, nor do I believe teaching could possibly have improved that much on average across the whole country.

If any changes in examination format have meant that students of a certain level of intelligence and knowledge get higher marks than they would have done previously, then even if the changes are done for perfectly honest and good reasons, they *would* still effectively be a lowering of standards by other means.

>>"It really seems unlikely that students have got *that* much smarter in half a generation, nor do I believe teaching could possibly have improved that much on average across the whole country."

Indeed, although the teaching is different. What's changed in that half a generation is the increasing use of more widely available past papers, mark schemes and examiners reports. It is now much easier to teach to the exam rather than teach to the subject.

Right I know this is a small(ish) sample but at uni I had to take a pre knowledge maths test. I did OK intrestingly though the results in that test as well as the ones the maths students take (I study physics) have risen consistantly through the use of the test despite the fact that they still use the same question bank. So anyone reckoning maths (and by extension I suppose you could argue more sciency ones) is getting easier has some explaning to do. Surely a main reason more people are passing is more people likly to fail are incouraged to do the easier subjects.

>>"intrestingly though the results in that test as well as the ones the maths students take (I study physics) have risen consistantly through the use of the test despite the fact that they still use the same question bank."

How long has the test been running?
How well does it correlate with modern and previous curriculums?
*Roughly* what level of students is it being given to (in terms of percentage ability within their year-group - top 10%, second 10%, etc)?
Is it test used for checking out students at interview time, or an entry test to assess their abilities or needs on entry?

>>"Surely a main reason more people are passing is more people likly to fail are incouraged to do the easier subjects."
An interesting hypothesis. Look at the numbers taking exams from 1993 to 2006.
Ignoring those for which there are only a few years' data available, the only subjects I can see from http://www.bstubbs.co.uk/a-lev.htm with *falling* numbers are:

Chemistry, Classical Studies, Communication Studies, English, French, Geography, German, Home Economics, Maths (Including Further) and Physics, *all* of which showed an increase in the percentages getting As of close to doubling or better over the period, and Economics, where the percentage getting As virtually tripled.

Now, it's *possible* that the least able students shifted to easier courses, leaving relatively brighter ones behind, though in many cases the percentage leaving was small, and the absolute number of people getting As has greatly increased, which would seem odd.

Since the overall number of examinations taken has increased by about 10%, even if students are taking more examinations, I assume the worst students aren't leaving education in vast numbers.

If relatively poor-performing students are switching to 'easier' A levels, then presumably those A levels should be showing a nice hump at the D,E,U end of their result spectrum, and maybe a dilution at the upper grades as the relative number of underperforming students on them increases.
Which A-levels would those be, then?

>>"Indeed, although the teaching is different. What's changed in that half a generation is the increasing use of more widely available past papers, mark schemes and examiners reports. It is now much easier to teach to the exam rather than teach to the subject."

Hmmm - well, I think that has always gone on in some subjects. By the time I took my A-levels, I think I'd done all the past papers in Maths and Further Maths from the preceding 2 decades, and had a fair crack at the Special and Special-Further Maths as well, though in Physics and Chemistry it was much more a case of teaching pretty much until the exam.

The difference then was that it made less difference if everyone was being taught basically to pass exams. The loss of potential learning would still have been there, but since the marking scheme meant that the percentage getting As was fixed, the effect on results would be minimal - at best you would have ended up ranking people even more than otherwise on their ability to pass exams, but the numbers in each slot would have been unaltered.

Also, if a paper was a little hard, it didn't matter, since the numbers got adjusted without needing subjective assesments of difficulty by examiners - a process always vulnerable to even an unconscious creeping effect if people are just a bit more scared of reducing the number of high scorers than they are of increasing it.

The beauty was that the assessment of how difficult a paper was was effectively done by the large numbers of people taking it, but in a way that didn't involve the need for subjective fudge-factors, except maybe when looking at the marking scheme and relative difficulty of individual questions. The overall fitting of percentages to grades was a basically mechanical process that couldn't be deliberately or accidentally manipulated to show annual growth.

Since the basic practical *point* of A levels is as a disposable measure of relative ability to allow useful selection by universities, the old system of marking was undeniably better for that function, since it couldn't be hijacked to support one or other political agenda, which education can unfortunately suffer from from multiple directions.

Even if new teaching methods *are* better, it would still be more useful to universities to be given data that allowed them to look at someone and say "Top 10%, next 15%, next 10%, etc", which is basically whats the old marks did.

You could *tell* a student they had got As in Maths, Chemistry and Physics, and then turn around and whisper to the university "But they were in the 5th, 4th and 3rd 10% of students respectively for those subjects", but that would seem to be being dishonest to the student.

Well my daughter who was starting her A levels back in about post 10 has now got ABB in Business Studies, Maths and Psychology, and she's goign to Birmingham, to study ...... wait for it..... classics.

Now when I was at school Greek or Latin was obligatory for classics, she will be doing either Greek or Italian as an extra module.

Obviously that will be hard work for her, but shows a more adaptive face being taken in education than it was in my day.

"How long has the test been running?
How well does it correlate with modern and previous curriculums?
*Roughly* what level of students is it being given to (in terms of percentage ability within their year-group - top 10%, second 10%, etc)?
Is it test used for checking out students at interview time, or an entry test to assess their abilities or needs on entry?"

It is a test on entry to the university. It was set with the old syllabus in mind. The maths and physics departements require either an A or a B in maths but there are some C students as well (in fact more than there used to be due to falling demand for the subjects). Despite this there is a constant increase in the mean and in the Standard deviation.

Some universities ask for individual unit scores in your applications.

That's really interesting.

Does anything actually depend on the test (ie is there any advantage to be gained from scoring highly)? (I'd *guess* the answer is 'no'.)

Has it always been given at the same time (eg immediately on entry?). I know after my A-levels that despite being pretty competent, I quickly forgot a whole load of maths, but it would only have taken a brief practice or bit of preparation to get a fair bit back.

On the subject of what university lecturers think, in fairness, I do have to accept that it's possible that many of them could honestly see falling standards due to the expansion of student numbers even if any given student leaves school as well-educated as they ever would have done.
Though a large expansion of numbers will certainly pull people into the system who would otherwise not have gone but are more than capable enough, it seems likely that *on average*, the 'extra' students added to the system will probably be less bright than the ones who would have been in it anyway.
For universities/courses that are middle-ranked or lower, they may see some people who would once have been their students moving up the scale to expanding and better-regarded places or courses. At the lower end of the scale, there may be some courses where many of the students would be people who wouldn't have qualified for a place anywhere some years previously.

When a lecturer says "My students are getting dimmer", what they may actually mean is "The people who would once have come here are going elsewhere".

Still, I'd love to see more research on measurements made by people other than the examining boards.

Just out of interest, did any of the people here that keep saying that anything that isn't Maths, Physics or Chemistry is 'easier' actually study any of those other subjects? I didn't you see, so I don't feel in a position to say that they are easier because I personally haven't done both in order to make that comparison.

Although I would love to have taken A-level english, it didn't fit in with the science curriculum so I couldn't add it. With the benefit of hindsight, wish I'd done it instead of Physics, but back when I was 16 and choosing my A-levels I picked the ones I thought I'd need for the career I then thought I wanted, rather than the ones I was really interested in. Given a totally free choice and more than three possible subjects I'd have done biology, chemistry, english, japanese, classics and philosophy. Shame my school didn't offer those last three really.

"Does anything actually depend on the test (ie is there any advantage to be gained from scoring highly)? (I'd *guess* the answer is 'no'.)

Has it always been given at the same time (eg immediately on entry?). I know after my A-levels that despite being pretty competent, I quickly forgot a whole load of maths, but it would only have taken a brief practice or bit of preparation to get a fair bit back."

It has always been done during freshers week. I think even to the point of always being done on the wednesday of it but am not sure.

There is something to be gained from sucess but it is limited. Do well enough and you don't have to attend extra maths lectures. Do really badly and there are extra problems as well as the extra lectures.

I also did IT and philosophy and definatly found them easier than the science subjects I did despite being better at science throughout my studies. I ended up doing worse in them though but did get a B in philosophy despite everyone telling me basically that I am no good at essay based stuff something I completely agreee with.

As I've said kelli, I have. I did A Levels in Physics, Chemistry, Geography and English Lang/Lit, my GCSEs showed a similar spread, and my degree was in Philosophy and Politics, so I'd like to think I've got a good understanding of both humanities and sciences

I did modern history and physics, maths and further maths A-levels. For me, Physics was easiest because the calculations were all covered in the maths. History was the most interesting, so I'm currently doing it at university. The double maths combination is very different from the rest and certainly required the most thought and the most work, but was also very bad for my soul.

Does that just reflect your interest though? Also, did you only just graduate? That means you passed through the system a good decade or more after me so our experiences may have been rather different.

I did far better at the subjects I was interested in than those I wasn't, so I would have said that studying (at least to A level) something that does capture one's interest is easier than studying something that doesn't - I found sciences, french and english easiest at GCSE level and consequently did best in those. I found goegraphy and art the least interesting, therefore they were hard for me to study and I consequently did lest well in those.

I'm assuming that response was to me kelli and not Bouncy

I have only just graduated, but I did go to an independent school (got a scholarship) so our experiences may not have been that different. I certainly experienced a more traditional education than most of my peers and my siblings who went to state school.

I was fascinated by geography and I did very well in that subject, but I was almost as interested in Chemistry and I didn't do half as well. Physics was similar, I enjoyed it and it really interested me, which is why I didn't drop it when I had the opportunity, but I struggled a lot of the time.

English, I enjoyed most of the time and it usually interested, but to be perfectly honest I did it because I knew I'd get a good grade and I liked the teacher.

In the two sciences I struggled because although I usually understood the general concepts, I could never work out the detailed mechanics (it probably didn't help that my maths is atrocious) and I couldn't ever work out the higher processes needed.

I was actually going to do a Chemistry degree until, after a few months of my Chemistry AS level, I realised I didn't have the intellectual goods and I was unable to develop them. So I started looking at humanities, which I knew I was capable of doing, and I came across the philosophy and politics degree and went for it, despite having never studied either subject and I've done well.

I think I probably found Chemistry most *interesting* of the A-levels I did (Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Further Maths), but also the most difficult.
There was not only a lot to learn, but none of the teachers were particularly inspiring, and at least one really didn't cover the syllabus properly.
Also, I suppose knowing that at best, I wouldn't do better in Chemistry than in any of my other subjects meant it wasn't something I was hugely motivated about in terms of pure results.
Though there were some reasonably bright students in my Chemistry class, and I *think* there were multiple classes, no-one in my year got an A.

Certainly, for me, Physics was only really half an A-level in terms of work, due to the Maths overlap.

I'm just giving this thread it's annual bump. If you have any questions, may I suggest you have a look at the backlog first, there's some good explanations.

My prediction, for what it's worth, is that the pass rate may slide slightly from the previous twelvty years of it rising a tiny bit each time. My prediction is based on the fact that the overhaul of A levels means that the current sytem is on the last cycle, and who wants to be seen to be getting rid of a system that might actually be working? (Government education policy - If it ain't broke, break it.)

Good luck everybody!