Vol. 562 No. 3
35 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Education and Science if his attention has been drawn to the report prepared by the educational research centre at St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra, raising serious concerns about the way in which different subjects are treated in the leaving certificate marking process; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5842/03]
The educational research centre, ERC, at St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra was commissioned by the task force on the physical sciences in December 2001 to investigate the comparability of grades awarded in different subjects in the leaving certificate examination, LCE. Specifically, the task force wanted to know if there was evidence to suggest that it is more difficult for physical science – chemistry and physics – candidates to do well, compared to students sitting other subjects. The research showed that students tended to be awarded lower grades in chemistry and physics than in the other higher level leaving certificate subjects that they sat. It used a methodology called subject pairs analysis which compared the mean of grades of students sitting a target subject, i.e. physics or chemistry, with their performance on a number of comparison subjects. The 16 most popular subjects were used in the analysis. The report was published as an appendix to the task force report which was published in the first half of 2002. However there have been concerns from a number of researchers on its validity.
The ERC undertook some further work on this matter which, while made available to the task force was not ready for inclusion in its final report. This analysis used an overall performance scale, OPS, based on students' junior certificate examination, JCE, performance as a proxy measure of academic ability to assess the variation of grading in the leaving certificate examination. A comparison of JCE results in 1997, 1998 and 1999 with LCE results in 2000 and 2001 was undertaken. While the focus was on physics and chemistry the report also dealt with other subjects. Some of the findings were not unexpected, for example student academic ability varies by subject and subjects attracting students of high academic ability award a larger portion of high grades. On the other hand there were unexpected findings which included the fact that the academic ability of students who are awarded identical grades varies by subject and the grades awarded between subjects can vary even when the academic ability of students taking the subjects is similar.
In mid-2002 my Department commissioned the ERC to undertake a more detailed analysis of comparability of grades in the leaving certificate examination as part of its ongoing quality assurance of the examinations process. I expect to receive this report shortly and, as I have indicated already, I look forward to its publication and recommendations.
