Language markers call for more guidance from exam board

Language GCSE markers have raised concerns about having to make “judgment calls without enough guidance” in papers set by Pearson Edexcel.

New specifications were introduced for Spanish, French and German this year, which resulted in new mark schemes.

GCSE Spanish and Portuguese markers have raised concerns about the marking process, as well as the mark scheme, workload and pay.

In previous years, the exam board held a live standardisation meeting during which markers could discuss how to mark certain questions and raise any queries.

It started doing “online standardisation” last year, where markers would log into a portal and complete a standardisation activity set up by the principal examiner.

This included a practice set of questions, with responses marked and annotated by the principal examiner, and a qualification set which examiners had to pass to be able to mark questions.

But markers said the creation of new specifications should have been supported by a live meeting so they could discuss subjective answers.

“Being able to go through responses, discuss borderline answers and have it explained clearly why particular answers should or should not be credited gave me much more confidence that the mark scheme was being applied consistently,” said one Spanish reading marker, who wished to remain anonymous.

Judgment calls

They added that the mark scheme this year was brief, which “meant markers often had to make judgment calls without enough guidance, which could easily lead to inconsistencies”.

“In many cases, the acceptable answers [in the mark scheme] were very brief, while the ‘do not accept’ column was largely left blank.

“There were occasions when an answer was accepted that, in my professional judgment, did not seem to answer the question, while another response that I felt did address it was not accepted.

“Obviously, as an examiner I followed the mark scheme, but I would have really valued the opportunity to discuss examples like these with a senior examiner and understand the rationale behind the decisions.”

A Pearson spokesperson said online standardisation provided “multiple checks and controls to ensure the mark scheme is applied accurately and consistently across all examiners”.

“Online standardisation is not new for our languages qualifications and is an effective way of preparing examiners, supporting the consistent application of the mark scheme, and maintaining high standards of marking quality.

“Examiners’ work is also continuously monitored throughout the live marking period by senior examiners.”

They added that updated mark schemes and supporting materials were made available at the beginning of the marking period.

Volume of marking

Another marker, who also wished to be anonymous, said they had sent about 50 questions from Portuguese papers for review because of uncertainty over their marks.

They received responses back for two of them, and by this time they had almost finished marking.

“If I was making mistakes, for example, it could have made a difference to exam marks. No-one clarified [the questions] – I had to go with my own judgment on it.”

There are concerns about the volume of marking too, particularly of translation questions that take longer.

A marker who last year was given about 1,760 questions for Spanish, half of which were translations, said they were given 3,500 this year, all of which involved translation.

They also had to mark double the number of Portuguese questions.

“It was insane – I was spending two or three hours a day just to mark 100 questions.”

The marker was also paid about 10 per cent less this year.

Pay ‘felt extremely low’

A Spanish reading marker added that “overall remuneration felt extremely low when compared with the actual time involved, the responsibility of the work, administration and the pressure of meeting the milestones”.

“Some of the interim deadlines were particularly demanding. At one point there were only three days between milestones, during which a substantial amount of marking had to be completed.”

Pearson said marking pay was determined by the volume of marking undertaken. They added that it can vary from one series to the next for a range of reasons, including the nature of the assessment and changes to the specification.

When additional marking is available after an examiner has completed their initial allocation, the exam board said it was standard practice to offer an incentivised rate to encourage markers to take on more marking.

There were 132,680 entries for GCSE Spanish this summer, according to Ofqual’s provisional entries data.

Pearson confirmed that all languages marking was completed on time.