Journal article
Standards as a social contract in curriculum-based qualifications: stakeholder views in Scotland
- Abstract:
- The theoretical literature on the meaning of qualification standards depicts a variety of definitions. Some definitions describe properties of examinees, whilst others rely on cohort-level or system-level characteristics. Different definitions can be compatible or contradictory. In this study, stakeholders’ views of the meaning of qualification standards in Scotland were collected, using focus groups (82 participants) and a questionnaire (918 participants). Almost 60% of questionnaire participants responded that standards tell us about performances on the assessment (criterion-referencing) and approximately 40% responded that they tell you about an underlying ability (construct-referencing). Few participants considered that maintaining statistical grade distributions every year were important. Discrepancies in views raise questions regarding how an examination board manages the political and technical process of maintaining public confidence in standards. Based upon this Scottish case, the authors argue that social settlements regarding qualification standards are a social contract, and a solely technocratic view of standards is conceptually inadequate.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.5MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1080/0305764X.2024.2377965
Authors
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Journal:
- Cambridge Journal of Education More from this journal
- Volume:
- 54
- Issue:
- 4
- Pages:
- 455-474
- Publication date:
- 2024-07-23
- Acceptance date:
- 2024-07-02
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1469-3577
- ISSN:
-
0305-764X
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
2011496
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2011496
- Deposit date:
-
2024-07-02
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Baird et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2024
- Rights statement:
- © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any med-ium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this articlehas been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
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