Assessing pre‐university students through extended individual investigations: teachers’ and examiners’ views

This paper reports a study of the views of teachers and Examination Board staff on the introduction of individual investigative work into pre‐university (Advanced level) Chemistry courses in England. The move towards investigative work at this level represented a significant change in emphasis in the nature of assessed practical work in pre‐university courses, and was initially a feature of only two courses, the Salters’ Advanced Chemistry course and the Cambridge Modular Science course. In this study, data were collected through the use of interviews with selected teachers of the two courses, and also with key staff in the relevant Examinations Boards. The findings of the study suggest that both teachers and Examination Board staff view the move towards investigative work at this level as having a number of benefits for students, though teachers reported some difficulty with their joint roles of teacher and assessor.