Developing Assessment Standards for Cambridge
Curriculum
Dan Bray
Director of Assessment
Content
 A focus on standards and competence
 Contrast of vocational and general educational approaches to assessing
competence
 Assessing projects and coursework
 Assessing collaboration
 Assessing the act of doing science
 Setting the Cambridge standards
Standards and competence
Aspects of Assessment Standards
Content standard
What has to be learnt
(knowledge and skills)
Presentation title
over 2 lines
Demand standard
Space difficult
for subtitle the
20pt tasks in the
How
assessment
are to complete
Presenter’s Name
Job Title
Date
Awarding standard
Attainment Standard
The level of performance
required pass or be awarded a
grade
The preparedness of students
for further study/employment/life
(predictive validity)
Competence – focus of attention
 Someone who is competent in a domain has the capability to use the body of
knowledge and skills of that domain to accomplish tasks and goals beyond the
educational or training programme
 competence focuses attention on “what people can do” (Bridges, 1996, p.364) as
opposed to merely what people know (Bridges, 1996; Mulder, 2012)
 ‘competence’ is often used interchangeably with other terms such as ‘skill’,
‘outcomes’, and ‘behaviour’, which dilutes the distinctiveness of the concept of
competence
 Needs careful and precise definition
Competence – A Cambridge definition
 competence focuses attention on “what people can
do” (Bridges, 1996, p.364) as opposed to merely what
people know (Bridges, 1996; Mulder, 2012)
 ‘competence’ is often used interchangeably with other
terms such as ‘skill’, ‘outcomes’, and ‘behaviour’ – but
needs careful definition.
Vitello, S., Greatorex, J., & Shaw, S. 2021. What is
competence? A shared interpretation of competence
to support teaching, learning and assessment.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
Competence is the ability to integrate and
apply contextually-appropriate
knowledge, skills and psychosocial
factors (e.g., beliefs, attitudes, values
and motivations) to consistently perform
successfully within a specified domain.
Competence – A Cambridge definition
 Need to Assess
 Skills
 Knowledge
 Psychosocial factors
 In context of a specific domain
Why do we use ‘competence’ rather than ‘competency’?
 The terms ‘competence’ and ‘competency’ are often used interchangeably
 ‘competence’ describes their broad qualities (e.g. being a competent driver).
 ‘competency’ is a narrower, atomistic element (e.g. the completion of a particular
driving manoeuvre)
(Hyland, 1994)
Vocational and General Educational
perspectives on competence
Vocational and General Education Perspectives
 General education - Commonly viewed from a cross-disciplinary perspective
identifying areas of competence that apply to a variety of disciplines, e.g. OECD’s
transformative competencies for 2030 (critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, etc)
 Vocational education - discipline specific (e.g., occupational role) is the starting
point for defining competence and identifying the underlying competencies. Need to
be competent in all identified skill
Vocational and General Education Perspectives
 General education - Commonly viewed from a cross-disciplinary perspective
identifying areas of competence that apply to a variety of disciplines, e.g. OECD’s
transformative competencies for 2030 (critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, etc)
 Vocational education - discipline specific (e.g., occupational role) is the starting
point for defining competence and identifying the underlying competencies. Need to
be competent in all identified skill
Vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs)
Cambridge Nationals & Technicals
 Cambridge Nationals and Technicals are vocational
qualifications for students aged 14+ & 16+
 Designed for the workplace in mind, also support
progression to higher education
 Designed as an alternative to A Levels
 Standards defined nationally, qualifications created by
awarding bodies
•Applied
Science
•Business
•Digital
Media
•Engineering
•Health and
Social Care
•Information
Technology
•Performing
Arts
•Sport and
Physical
Activity
Cambridge Nationals and Technicals – Assessment model
Examination
Moderated Assignments
 All quals have an external summative
assessment (wasn’t true before)
 Standardised at school level
 Enables a control over standards
 Is critical to ensuring university
recognition
 Externally moderated by the
awarding body
 Visiting moderators
 Centres required to keep evidence of
candidate work and the internal
standardisation process
 Pass / Merit / Distinction
 Must meet all criteria for the level.
 Each criterion is Yes / NO
Assessing projects and coursework
Projects and coursework for general qualifications
What is coursework?
• Extended Tasks set by teacher to awarding body specification
• Students are supported by teacher but work is unsupervised
 Construct validity
 The one-off pen and paper approach may not be adequate
for assessing constructs that are best exemplified by tasks
that involve performance or producing a product over an
extended period of time. (Chong, 2009)
 Consistent performance over time – avoids
students “having a bad day”
 Engaging students – allows them to do projects
that they are interesting in
 Is a compensatory model - i.e. it is a holistic
Maintaining (awarding) standard of coursework
 It is the responsibility of the school to mark consistently so that the candidates are
in an appropriate order of merit before external moderation.
Guidance on suitable tasks
Teacher marks all
student work
Clear assessment criteria
Schools standardise
marks
Example materials
Schools submit
marks to Cambridge
Cambridge selects a
sample of students
Marks are scaled if
necessary
Cambridge
moderator - remarks
a sample
Schools submit
sample work to
Cambridge
The challenge of coursework
Can become
Good differentiation
High levels of reliability
 High levels of coaching from teachers
and/or parents
 Students spend huge amount of time
on tasks
 Difficult to control for cheating
Poor differentiation
Low levels of reliability
 Is not a problem for vocational
qualification measuring a minimum
standard
 Is not such a problem for performance
based task or research projects
- but activities need to be authentic
Assessing collaboration
Assessing Collaboration
 Why is it important
 21st Century skills
 Competency based education
 Why is it a challenge for highstakes assessments?
 Assessing output or process
 Difficult to identify individual’s
contribution
 Different models of teams can be
effective
 People play different roles in a team –
which is more important?
The collaborative process
Global Perspectives
 Component 3 Team Project
 Learners must work in teams of two to five members to
identify a local problem which has global relevance
 Presentation: Individuals present their research and
preferred solution in a formal live presentation
 Reflective paper: how the team worked together, what
could be improved, and any changes to their personal
views shaped by the collaborative experience.
IGCSE Enterprise
 Task 1 Choosing a suitable project (can work alone or
in groups of up to six)
 Task 2 Planning the project
 Task 2a Planning to manage potential problems or issues in the action plan
 Task 2b Planning for financing the project OR planning marketing
communications
 Task 3 Using enterprise skills to implement the plan
 Task 4 Evaluating the project
Assessing the act of doing science
Competence in science
If we want our students to be
competent in science, what does
that mean?
 Must know and understand the
fundamental principles and key facts
for the scientific domain
 Must to be able to apply this key
principles to new circumstances
 Must be able to do science
Assessing practical science
Multiple Choice
&
Theory
 Practical paper
+
Practical
or
 In a science lab – collecting real data
Alternative to
practical
 Multiple Choice – testing knowledge
and understanding
 Extended answers – testing the ability
to apply knowledge
 Practical paper or ATP – testing the
ability to do science
 Doesn’t always give neat results
 Technicians report
 Alternative to Practical
 When it is challenging for a school to
arrange for a practical assessment
 Student is expected to have practiced
UK GCSEs
Students complete at least eight practical activities
and have the opportunity to use all the apparatus
and techniques listed in the specifications
Practical knowledge assessed in the examinations
Questions for future developments of practical science
If we want our students to be
competent in science, what does
that mean?
 Are there other ways that students
could ‘do’ science?
 Does being competent in science
require a student to be able to conduct
experiments?
 Computer simulations?
 Experiments outside of the lab?
Setting the Cambridge standard
Code of practice commitments
 The grading process will maintain the
awarding standard of a syllabus from
one year to the next, subject to the
need for alignment with any equivalent
qualification taken in England.
 The grade thresholds for a component
may be raised or lowered from one
series to another to allow for changes
in difficulty, or to make an adjustment
to the awarding standard.
 A combination of expert judgements
and statistical evidence will be used to
inform grading decisions.
 The evidence considered will include
both evidence about the difficulty of the
assessment and evidence about the
ability of the cohort.
Lower demand = Higher thresholds
Higher demand = Lower thresholds
Examination Standards – the challenge of the pandemic
2019
• Standard
examination
series
2020
•
•
•
Examinations
cancelled in UK
Awarding based on
previous grade
distributions
unacceptable
Grades based on
teachers’ predicted
grades only
2021
•
•
•
Examinations
cancelled in UK
Grades based on
teachers’ predicted
grades only
Cambridge ran
dual system examinations
(where possible)
and SAG if not
2022
•
•
Examinations held
in UK
Cambridge ran
dual system examinations
(where possible)
and Portfolio of
Evidence if not
2023
• Standard
examination
series
Pre-pandemic
standard restored
Standard eased
by about 0.5
grades
Standard eased
by about 0.5
grades
Gradual return to
pre-pandemic
standard
How does Portfolio of Evidence work?
 Centres select a Portfolio of Evidence for each candidate
 Portfolio of evidence is made up of three substantial pieces of evidence
 Centres do not mark or grade the Portfolio of Evidence
 Centres submit the portfolio digitally to Cambridge through our online Submit for
Assessment portal and it is then uploaded to RM Assessor3 for examiners
 Examiners assign a mark to each piece of
evidence submitted by the centre
 Examiners’ marks are used to calculate a
final grade for each candidate for each
syllabus they are entered for.
Portfolio of Evidence (PoE)
 Why PoE
 Allows a route to a grade for students in centres
unable to run examinations
(Cambridge International makes the decision about
whether a centre can switch to PoE.)
 Allows Cambridge to maintain control of standards
THANK YOU
Coherent Assessments