Greater awareness of scaling, aligning and moderating (1 Viewer)

[~ ReNcH ~]

A lot of students are curious about how the scaling, moderating and aligning processes work and they want to know how and why they got their particular marks and UAIs. However, as is evident from this part of the BoS forum and from many other parts of the forum, most HSC students know very little about the entire process. From what I can gather, they want to know more. The few pamphlets that are sent out by the Board of Studies and UAC obviously aren't enough to satisfy the curiosity of students across the state.

What do you think? Should students focus on their studies and not worry about how their marks came about? Or should they be made more aware of the process, possibly through special booklets, talks by studies co-ordinators and the like? Any comments are welcome.

 

[goan_crazy]

I say there should be greater awareness

Wheres the poll Rench?

 

[tempco]

they should know 3 things:

- internal ranking is important
- ranking of assessments matter more than the actual marks
- the hsc exam is important

that's about it.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

I say there should be greater awareness

Wheres the poll Rench?

Hehe...sorry, I was just thinking of questions to include...it's up now. If you think I should edit the poll questions slightly, just ask coz I wasn't entirely too sure of the "scope" I should cover in the poll.

 

[withoutaface]

They should be given a pamphlet explaining everything.

 

[hojufixter]

I think there should be more information out there, but students should have to access it themselves (eg website dedicated to it). I also think that the ranking system sucks, and it should be disposed of (though i know this probably wont happen anytime soon).

 

[A l]

I think students do need to have greater awareness of the process of the scaling, aligning and moderating system, but should be in a brief but clear outline without any direct use of numerical values. If I wanted to, I could type the processes all out in this thread or create some informative booklet, but it would probably be too long.

 

[Trebla]

I agree. Teachers should especially be aware of this too. I wasn't allowed to do English Advanced because of a teacher's belief of some scaling myth!

 

[Meldrum]

I wish I'd known more about scaling before subject selection. I picked my subjects based on what I thought would scale well...turns out they don't.

 

[volition]

I think there is quite a lot of false information floating around via word of mouth, because some people just don't know what they're talking about when they try to explain things about HSC/UAI. One guy I know seemed to think that the poor performance of the cohort last year will somehow make it harder for our cohort....

 

[The_highwayman]

The more people know how the system works, the more chance that people will find a way to cheat it and manipulate it to do less work for a greater mark.

 

[get_born]

The more people know how the system works, the more chance that people will find a way to cheat it and manipulate it to do less work for a greater mark.

You shouldn't think the worst of people. Its just the opposite if more people knew how the system works they'd probably take on subjects that are the best scalers and those subjects eg. physics need more work than say general maths.

 

[fleepbasding]

You shouldn't think the worst of people. Its just the opposite if more people knew how the system works they'd probably take on subjects that are the best scalers and those subjects eg. physics need more work than say general maths.

I don't see it as a good thing that more people will choose subjects solely based on scaling. Won't that make the scaling get worse anyway because of all the stupider students choosing the subject?

Yes though, students should be told more about all the procedures involved with the HSC/UAI.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

The more people know how the system works, the more chance that people will find a way to cheat it and manipulate it to do less work for a greater mark.

But there is no real way to cheat the system. To get good marks you have to work hard and that's a fact. If you don't work, you won't get the marks.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

I agree. Teachers should especially be aware of this too. I wasn't allowed to do English Advanced because of a teacher's belief of some scaling myth!

That raises another point...teachers themselves know very little about each process. Much of the time, when students ask any of the teachers about scaling/aligning/moderating/rankings, they brush it aside and tell them not to worry about it. From my experience, that tends to make students even more anxious.

 

[get_born]

But there is no real way to cheat the system. To get good marks you have to work hard and that's a fact. If you don't work, you won't get the marks.

yeah! its human instinct.

 

[heidi_kak]

they should be made to understand that a poor ranking in school assessments doesn't necessarily mean no chance of a good hsc mark. because theoretically, if everyone in a certain school does brilliantly well in the actual hsc exams, everyone will get a good final result regardless of their rank in internal assessments.

i think this is basically the process that takes place in selective schools anyway, with or without them knowing it.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

they should be made to understand that a poor ranking in school assessments doesn't necessarily mean no chance of a good hsc mark. because theoretically, if everyone in a certain school does brilliantly well in the actual hsc exams, everyone will get a good final result regardless of their rank in internal assessments.

i think this is basically the process that takes place in selective schools anyway, with or without them knowing it.

Yea, this again raises another point that has come to my attention.

Teachers tend to emphasise the importance of ranks without explaining that it's not the physical rank number itself that matters, but rather the gap between you and the person in front of you that matters most. Many students falsely conclude that since they're ranked 100/110 they're going to attain a poor mark..this isn't necessarily true. You could be ranked 100/110 but there could be only 5 marks separating you and Rank #1 - this would most likely be the situation in a highly competitive school, and even the person ranked 100/110 can still do well despite the "poor" appearance of their ranking.

 

[get_born]

Yea, this again raises another point that has come to my attention.

Teachers tend to emphasise the importance of ranks without explaining that it's not the physical rank number itself that matters, but rather the gap between you and the person in front of you that matters most. Many students falsely conclude that since they're ranked 100/110 they're going to attain a poor mark..this isn't necessarily true. You could be ranked 100/110 but there could be only 5 marks separating you and Rank #1 - this would most likely be the situation in a highly competitive school, and even the person ranked 100/110 can still do well despite the "poor" appearance of their ranking.

all this talk of rank is confusing... i reckon everyone should study or not - whatever they decide and just leave those in charge to mark our UAI's.

 

[Captain pi]

I think there needs to be a much greater awareness of moderating, aligning, and scaling. However, I think the information needs to be given early and students should read it quickly – maybe, as withoutaface said, in a pamphlet; it should take up two hours maximum of your HSC year and then you should be encouraged to not worry about it.

When I say "greater awareness", I mean everything – raw band cut-offs (maybe these should just be available: a pamphlet may be too small) and the scaling algorithm should not be excluded.