{"id":945,"date":"2012-05-18T14:04:30","date_gmt":"2012-05-18T14:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/?p=945"},"modified":"2012-05-18T14:05:06","modified_gmt":"2012-05-18T14:05:06","slug":"exam-marking-errors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/?p=945","title":{"rendered":"Exam marking errors"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m pleased to hear that OCR have apologised for errors <\/a>in adding up marks for GCSE and A-level papers last year. It doesn’t seem right that the whistleblower remains suspended, but I don’t know the details so perhaps I shouldn’t comment.<\/p>\n

When I first heard about this latest case of human error in exam marking, I was\u00a0amazed that we are still reliant on human arithmetic (though I know that addition of scores is meant to be checked by someone else – and that payment for this is included in the payment of GCSE and A-level markers). However I suppose that if markers were required to enter their scores into a computerised system of some sort (to enable the computer to check the arithmetic, or to do the arithmetic in the first instance) there would still be transcription errors – and it would take time and so slow down the marking process.<\/p>\n

The important point is that, however much their work is checked and however much they are encouraged not to make mistakes and\/or punished for making them (according to The Guardian<\/a>, some examiners have had their contracts terminated), human markers are fallible. They are fallible when marking, they are fallible when adding scores. I’m a human, I make mistakes. The sooner we are honest with ourselves and admit that, the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m pleased to hear that OCR have apologised for errors in adding up marks for GCSE and A-level papers last year. It doesn’t seem right that the whistleblower remains suspended, but I don’t know the details so perhaps I shouldn’t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[374],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-marking","tag-human-marking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":948,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions\/948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/SallyJordan\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}