Comparative Judgement is a better predictor of marks than marking!
Yesterday, Ofqual published a study that looked in detail at alternatives to marking, including Comparative Judgement. Their key finding, rather buried in the report, is that, for their study of AS History:
- Comparative Judgement achieves the same reliability as single marking after 4 judgements per script;
- Comparative Judgement achieves the same reliability as double marking after 5 judgements per script;
- After 5 judgements per script the reliability of Comparative Judgement continues to increase exponentially compared to marking.
- Comparative Judgement rewards the same abilities as marking, simply with much higher reliability.
All of this is on page 27 of the report Marking reliability studies 2017.
We recommend as a minimum 10 judgements per script, which teachers achieve in around the same time as traditional marking, giving us a huge advantage over traditional marking methods!
What Ofqual don’t go on to examine, is how, with Comparative Judgement, you can moderate teacher assessment nationally without any fear of gaming and bias in a way that you never could with a traditional marking approach.
Little wonder that Ofqual have decided that Comparative Judgement is worthy of further research!