I think Coursework + Viva will fit the bill.

Bit that's a lot of work for teachers.

And a certain amount of judgement is involved.

And it's not easy to centrally-control.

Whereas a nice little exam is less work/no judgement/ and centrally
controlled.

JOHN

> -----Original Message-----
> From: email list for Radical Statistics
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Ted Harding
> Sent: 03 October 2006 13:04
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: "I'm amazed not to have been flooded with comments about
> Mat
>
>
> On 03-Oct-06 John Whittington wrote:
> > At 13:09 02/10/06 +0100, Bland, M. wrote:
> >
> >>My son did a piece of GCSE maths coursework about 10 years ago,
> >>which he called "A mathematical analysis of football" and looked
> >>at the effect of home crowd size on a team's final league points.
> >>He had a bit of help with the computing from myself, but otherwise
> >>it was all his own work and his own idea.  When a paper then
> >>appeared in The Statistician which disagreed with his conclusions,
> >>I showed it to him and he produced a good argument as to why he
> >>was correct. This was published as a letter (Bland ND, Bland JM.
> >>(1996) Home ground advantage and average home attendance.
> >>/The Statistician/, 45, 381-3). He did similar independent
> >>pieces of work in his A level Biology and Chemistry. In my own
> >>school days, we did nothing like this and I certainly could not
> >>have produced the sort of projects he did.
> >
> > Indeed, from an education viewpoint, these exercises are absolutely
> > invaluable, provided they are not abused. I have been greatly
> > impressed by some of the projects/coursework undertaken by my
> > daughters and fellow students at both GCSE and A-Level, and even
> > more impressed by some undergraduate coursework/projects that I have
> > seen ... and, as you say, these are amazing opportunities which us
> > 'oldies' never had!
> >
> > However, if the work is undertaken unsupervised, we simply cannot
> > ignore the fact that some (we are being told a lot) will try to
> > abuse the system.  Assuming that your son's coursework was
> > essentially 'unsupervised', and whilst I obviously am not suggesting
> > this is the case, do you think it would have been very likely that
> > you/he would have been 'found out' had the work been entirely yours?
> > At university level, the 'policing' is largely achieved by in-depth
> > vivas, including external and well as 'internal' assessors, that at
> > least ensure that the student has a good understanding of the work
> > that (s)he has presented (the viva I had for the 'project' in my
> > first degree lasted best part of an hour) - but that would presumably
> > be totally impractical for school 'exams'.
> >
> >>What a pity that this educational benefit is being thrown away at
> >>what seems like a politician's whim.
> >
> > Yes, it's a great pity, but I still have to ask what you, and others,
> > can suggest as a realistic way of minimising abuse. I suppsoe it's
> > yet another example of the many suffering because of the few. There
> > is clearly little if any 'educational benefit' for those who manage
> > to get qualifications on the basis of someone else's work!
>
> Martin Bland's son clearly had his own motivation (chose the topic,
> did the work, defended his corner), and no doubt was committed to
> seeing how well he could do the job himself. I dare guess he would
> have been dismissive of "cribbing" any of it.
>
> And, if there had been a "viva" on his work, he would have stood
> solid, by the look of things!
>
> This is a matter of cultural attitude. When the culture encourages
> or permits getting the marks no matter how, then of course some
> (?many) will look for whatever sources will provide the materials.
> This is bound to draw in those who may feel uncomfortable about
> doing things that way, but who would also feel fools in the eyes
> of their more "enterprising" classmates. While they may not
> develop the attitudes and abilities that we, here, would wish a
> proper education to provide, they may nevertheless emerge with
> well-developed aptitudes for future careers as "Rogue Traders".
>
> Or for jobs sitting in front of conputer screens, where the drop
> down menus supply what is needed to get through the task of the
> moment.
>
> As to what might be "a realistic way of minimising abuse", I can't
> think. There are too many factors, some of them widely pervasive.
>
> As a (possibly extreme) analogy, I envisage a student of Music
> whose assessment includes performing a piano work. If the exam
> structure allowed him to satisfy this by submitting a recording
> of himself playing it, then the scope for substitution is clear.
> And so is the remedy: it's no great load on the assessment
> system to have the student sit at the intrument and perform,
> with a qualified assessor present (subject to valid identification).
>
> At the opposite extreme are projects of such breadth, depth
> complexity, originality or obscurity that verification could take
> weeks in each case. This would rule it out in the school exam
> context (though of course this is exactly what happens with a PhD:
> the examiners, at least three, have weeks each to read the thesis
> in detail, identifiy issues, and then assemble for at least half
> a day to interview the candidate and deliberate; and have lunch).
> But the PhD assessment is a costly matter, in resources and money.
>
> Somewhere between these extremes lie
>
> a) The depth/breadth/... of school projects
>
> b) The resources that can be applied to fair assessment
>
> On this analysis, I see the issue as essentially the degree of
> mismatch between (a) and (b).
>
> The increasing prevalence of "tick-box" written exams strikes
> me as an attempt to reduce (a) until it descends to the level
> of (b). Teachers themselves, under pressure to attain targets,
> are likely to succumb to "teaching tick-box technique", just
> as ICT can degenerate into learning how the drop-down menus
> can be accessed.
>
> Ah well ...
> Ted.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[log in to unmask]>
> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
> Date: 03-Oct-06                                       Time: 13:04:07
> ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
>
> ******************************************************
> Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your
> message will go only to the sender of this message.
> If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's
> 'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically
> to [log in to unmask]
> Disclaimer: The messages sent to this list are the views of the
> sender and cannot be assumed to be representative of the range of
> views held by subscribers to the Radical Statistics Group. To
> find out more about Radical Statistics and its aims and
> activities and read current and past issues of our newsletter you
> are invited to visit our web site www.radstats.org.uk.
> *******************************************************
>
> --
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.407 / Virus Database: 268.12.11/460 - Release Date:
> 01/10/2006
>
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.4/477 - Release Date: 16/10/2006

******************************************************
Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your
message will go only to the sender of this message.
If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's
'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically
to [log in to unmask]
Disclaimer: The messages sent to this list are the views of the sender and cannot be assumed to be representative of the range of views held by subscribers to the Radical Statistics Group. To find out more about Radical Statistics and its aims and activities and read current and past issues of our newsletter you are invited to visit our web site www.radstats.org.uk.
*******************************************************