Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 July 2020
506. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Education and Skills the statistical methods which will be used for the standardisation of results submitted by schools in the context of the calculation of grades within the leaving certificate; and the relevant mathematical equations. [14644/20]
View answerA system of Calculated Grades was put in place by my predecessor due to the inability to run the normal Leaving Certificate examinations. The purpose of this process is to allow as many students as possible to progress to employment, further education and training, or higher education in a way that is fair and equitable to all Leaving Certificate students.
For the calculated grades system to be operated with integrity, an estimated percentage mark, based on credible, satisfactory evidence, can only be accepted from an appropriate source. This is necessary to ensure fairness to all students.
Detailed guidance for schools on calculated grades was published on 21 May. The document sets out information on the process that was to be undertaken for estimating marks for students to receive calculated grades, and was sent to all schools. The document, together with Frequently Asked Questions, are available on www.gov.ie/leavingcertificate. Additional guidance to schools on the avoidance of unconscious bias, interpreting evidence of achievement in the case of students with disabilities, and further guidance on bonus marks that would have applied for answering the written examinations through Irish issued to schools on 28 May.
Schools have since returned estimated percentage marks for students to the Departments Calculated Grades Executive Office.
Research makes clear that because teacher judgments are made in the context of each school, they need to be examined and adjusted at a national level to ensure comparability across different schools and that a common national standard is applied.
In the national standardisation phase school-sourced data will be combined with historical data. This standardisation process will be used to ensure that the calculated grades reflect standards that are properly aligned across schools and with a common national standard. The key principles of objectivity, equity and fairness will be further underpinned within the national standardisation process and the process has been designed to arrive at fair representations of student performance which does not favour any type of student or school. These data sets allow the production of good calculations of the distributions of marks to be expected for each school and nationally.
The relevant Department data sets that support the process include mark data at:
- National level for both Leaving Certificate and Junior Certificate examinations for 2019 and previous years;
- School level for both Leaving Certificate and Junior Certificate examinations for 2019 and previous years;
- Candidate level for both Leaving Certificate and Junior Certificate examinations for 2019 and previous years;
- Candidate level for the Junior Certificate results of the 2020 Leaving Certificate cohort of candidates.
In advance of receiving the estimated percentage marks from schools the information about how the school has done in the past and the information about the strengths and weakness of the current group of students will all be assembled and will be used to predict the level of achievement that this particular group of students would have been expected to reach in that subject if those students had sat the Leaving Certificate examination in the normal way. This information is then combined with the estimates that the school has provided in order to generate the fairest possible result that can be calculated. Checks have to be made to ensure that the outcomes of the standardisation process are valid – this involves checking that the standardisation process has not been unfair to students.
An independent Steering Committee chaired by Dr Áine Lawlor, former Director of the Teaching Council, is overseeing the quality and integrity of the outcomes of the calculated grades system. It is intended to publish further details about the standardisation process following the issue of calculated grades to candidates.
After the national standardisation process, the calculated marks will be converted into calculated grades, and these grades will be issued to candidates. The calculated grades will be expressed in the same manner as currently applies to Leaving Certificate grades - H1, H2, O1, O2, etc.
