King Edward VII School
OCR: A2 Psychology
The appeal, which was heard on 18 June 2004, was allowed.
The school had entered 63 candidates for unit 2543. This was the externally marked coursework unit, the psychology research report. The candidates had completed their work by November 2002.
The report by Mike Tomlinson, following his inquiry into the issues surrounding the June 2002 examinations, had noted that this unit was operating with a mark scheme that failed to differentiate effectively between candidates. OCR responded to Mr Tomlinson’s recommendation by embarking upon a revision of the mark scheme for the unit and submitted it, as required, to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, (QCA) for its approval. QCA approved the revised mark scheme for the unit on 16 April 2003. OCR sent a Notice to Centres in April 2003 advising that it had made some amendments to improve assessment of unit 2543 whilst assuring them that the revised mark scheme would have no implications for teaching or for the preparation of candidates for June 2003. A trial application of the mark scheme confirmed that examiners could achieve a wider distribution of marks whilst leaving the rank order unchanged. When it received its results, the school believed that its candidates had been disadvantaged by the revised mark scheme and appealed to OCR. The appeal was upheld at a hearing of an OCR appeals panel. The panel asked that the work be re-marked using the mark scheme then officially in use. OCR believed that this referred to the revised mark scheme. The school believed that it referred to the original mark scheme.
The school considered that an important principle was at stake in the appeal. This principle was that candidates ought to know the criteria against which they were being judged. The heart of the school’s case at the stage two appeal had been that the retrospective introduction of criteria had the potential to disadvantage candidates and was, therefore, unacceptable. The school did not argue that the revised mark scheme was inferior and, in fact, considered it an improvement. The school believed that the stage two appeal had ordered a re-mark using the original mark scheme. The re-mark was actually conducted using the revised mark scheme. In the school’s view this rendered the appeal decision meaningless. The school could not see why the panel would request a re-mark using the revised mark scheme.
Working from the principle that candidates should not be judged against unknown criteria, the school contended that the procedures of the awarding body failed to put the principle into practice. The school did not accept that OCR’s argument, that the introduction of the revised mark scheme was without detriment to candidates, was valid. The school believed that there had been the potential for detriment and that actual detriment had occurred.
The school argued that the mark scheme ‘officially in use’ was the one that had been published and was in the public domain at the time of entering candidates for the examination. The school did not accept OCR’s contention that the original mark scheme became ‘unofficial’ and could find no procedure in the Code of Practice that rendered a mark scheme unofficial. For this reason, the school believed that for OCR to have used the revised mark scheme in the re-marking undermined the decision of the stage two appeal.
The school contended that the revised mark scheme introduced new requirements that were not found in the original mark scheme.
The school understood the pressures that OCR had been under in making its decision to revise the mark scheme. However, it did not accept that the timing of its introduction had to be immediate. The school contended that OCR should have defended the interests of its customers and prevailed upon QCA to recognise the inappropriateness of introducing the revised scheme with immediate effect.
OCR maintained that there was no doubt on its part that the stage two panel had intended the re-mark to be conducted using the revised mark scheme.
OCR pointed out that the Tomlinson Report had indicated the need to revise the mark scheme for this unit. It had been necessary for OCR and QCA to act. Work on the development of a new mark scheme took place. The new mark scheme was submitted to QCA and approved on 16 April 2003. The approval came into effect immediately and the existing mark scheme ceased to have approval from that point. Had the approval not been forthcoming then the old mark scheme would have remained in force. It was not correct to state that the original mark scheme became 'unofficial' when the revised mark scheme was approved by QCA. At that point in time the original mark scheme became 'no longer approved'.
Senior officers at OCR had discussed the timing and whether the introduction of the revised mark scheme would disadvantage candidates. OCR came to the view that it would be a greater disadvantage to candidates to leave the original scheme in place. OCR pointed out that about 10% more candidates achieved grade e or above in 2003 compared to 2002. OCR considered that the introduction of the revised mark scheme had not disadvantaged, but had in fact advantaged, candidates.
OCR maintained that the school had misunderstood the decision of the stage two appeal panel. It argued that the key issues for that panel would have been the maintenance of the examination’s integrity and fairness to individual candidates. The panel would have asked itself if it was confident about the marks and grades awarded and would request further work if it had any doubt. The panel did express concern about the timing of the introduction of the revised mark scheme. However, it found it difficult to establish the precise extent to which candidates may have been disadvantaged. Since this was the first occasion that the mark scheme had been used, the panel wished to be assured that it had been applied correctly and therefore requested a re-mark. Such an assurance could only be given using the revised mark scheme. OCR considered that the panel could not have requested using the original mark scheme as it was no longer approved, there had been no standardisation of markers and no awarding meeting to establish grade boundaries.
The Panel agreed unanimously to uphold the appeal. It acknowledged that OCR had been under pressure to re-write the mark scheme and understood why the decision to introduce it had been made. Nevertheless, it considered that it was unfair to the candidates to introduce the new scheme at that time. The Panel noted that OCR’s advice to centres was that the mark scheme should be studied before letting students embark on coursework. This could not have been done as the publication of the new mark scheme did not take place until after the completion of the examination.
However, the Panel did not accept that it had been the intention of the OCR appeals committee to request that the re-mark of the work be carried out using the original mark scheme. The Panel considered that it would be technically impossible to make an award in such circumstances and accepted that the stage two appeal hearing was concerned to ensure that the revised mark scheme had been correctly applied.
The Panel considered with regret that there was no remedy available for this particular cohort. It did not believe that it was right to ask the awarding body to re-mark the candidates’ work using a mark scheme which was no longer approved and which itself had been found to be defective. It would not be possible to carry out the processes of standardisation and setting grade boundaries using scripts from a single centre. The Panel hoped that the school would recognise and accept this.