Definitions of examination standards in public examinations internationally

Educational cultures differ across countries in ways which permeate how examination standards are perceived and enacted. This project investigates the conceptualisation and operation of examination standards, beginning with a home-international comparison of the Scottish and English approaches to defining leaving-school examination standards.

Dr. Lena Gray and Professor Jo-Anne Baird have published a paper in the Oxford Review of Education, setting out the differences in the ways standards are perceived and enacted in Scotland and England. This work will be extended to other countries in the long term in the joint project between Oxford University, AQA and Ofqual: Standard Setting and Maintaining in National Examinations.

Publication

Baird, J. & Gray, L. (2016) The meaning of curriculum-related examination standards in Scotland and England: a home–international comparison, Oxford Review of Education, 42 (3), 266-284. Special Issue: Education in a federal UK.