Abstract
A variety of different assessment formats has evolved in higher education in recent years – many inspired by task-related activities in the working environment. Some are not new: at Masters level, the dissertation is long-established, whereas at undergraduate level, projects and portfolios are proving increasingly popular. Portfolios are particularly favoured for professional subjects. Implementing these alternative forms of assessment is not always straightforward even when strict rubrics are applied. As a consequence, double-marking is frequently used in an effort to reduce the subjectivity of marks awarded. Unfortunately, this strategy too can prove problematic – as recent studies have shown – especially when there is an irreconcilable disagreement between first and second examiners. In the article, we focus on this issue of inter-marker conflict and through a series of simple statistical models offer insights into how final marks might more fairly be determined.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jim Freeman
Jim Freeman is a Senior Lecturer in Statistics and Operational Research at Manchester Business School. His research interests embrace game theory, simulation and applied statistics. Co-author of the market-leading European, Middle Eastern and African version of the famous Cengage ‘Statistics for Business and Economics’ text he has contributed significantly to a wide variety of OR and statistics projects over the years, using techniques as diverse as AHP, change-point modelling, SEM, text mining and ordinal and logistic regression.
Bland Tomkinson
Bland Tomkinson is Visiting Lecturer and Honorary Pedagogic Development Adviser in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Manchester, teaching part-time on a Masters course in the management of projects, leading a problem-based unit on managing humanitarian aid projects. Bland started his career undertaking OR in RAF Transport Command, before moving to the Local Government OR Unit. This was followed by a variety of roles in UMIST/University of Manchester, retiring as University Adviser on Pedagogic Development.