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Board of Studies reveals raw marks! (2001) (2 Viewers)

*girl04*

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Originally posted by braindrainedAsh
Next quest for Laz.... you should now request copies of your actual exam papers and responses. Surely that would come under FOI?

I'm seriously interested in finding out my raw marks now...

i was going to to that for the school cert! ( strange i know) but i wanted to know where i stuffed up, i didnt and it would be too late now but i nearly rang up, coz i figured they would have them scored somewhere and if u payed them they would locate it for u ( maybe)
 

Minai

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Originally posted by *girl04*
hmmmm doesnt that mean everyone can claim to see their marks? coz what they do for one they should do for another
?
yes, under the Freedom of Information Act, you have a RIGHT to request any information the government has about you - including raw HSC marks
 

04er

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so Laz, how did you react when you found out your raw marks? Were they lower or higher than you expected? Does this have any impact on SAM? (I dont understand why most of your marks 'scaled up')
 

Snapwizard

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Under This Freedom of Information Act - Is it possible for Board of studies to release further information, so we maybe be able to rank schools in NSW from 1 to 600 (as opposed to neswpapers top 50)

Such information includes
Number of canditures in each school
Number of band 6 (already exits) numbers of band 5 and so on
Average band per school
Average mark from each course in each school

With these info and more LAZ would be able to workout a few systems to rank everyschool in NSW!!
 

santaslayer

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ahahaa......that would cause a lotta administration problems for UAC and probably force them to publish ranks of schools from 1-600 in the newspapers..LoLz
 

Snapwizard

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Offically put our school at the bottom of the list !! lolz No more speculation, our school really sux that much ~~ and this time we have proff lolz
 

Ragerunner

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They won't reveal just any information.

Your gonna have to fight for it :)
 

Lazarus

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Originally posted by 04er
so Laz, how did you react when you found out your raw marks? Were they lower or higher than you expected? Does this have any impact on SAM? (I dont understand why most of your marks 'scaled up')
I wasn't really sure what to expect. My individual marks don't really mean much - obtaining them was simply the first step towards obtaining more general statistics. There is a long way to go before I'll be able to rewrite and improve SAM, but it's definitely possible. And, most of my aligned marks were higher than my raw marks purely because aligned marks are compressed upwards to a mark range of 50 - 100, whereas the raw marks typically span a greater range (e.g. 0 - 100).

Originally posted by Snapwizard
Under This Freedom of Information Act - Is it possible for Board of studies to release further information, so we maybe be able to rank schools in NSW from 1 to 600 (as opposed to neswpapers top 50)
No.

Aside from the fact that the items you listed would not be enough to accurately rank schools anyway, huge political dramas arise when results of individual students or schools are published - partially due to the Mt Druitt fiasco back in late 1996.

Section 5 of the Education Regulation 2001 (NSW) provides that:

(1) This clause applies to the following results:
...
(b) results of School Certificate and Higher School Certificate examinations and related assessments.
...
(5) Results to which this clause applies must not be publicly revealed in a way that ranks or otherwise compares the results of particular schools.
 

Snapwizard

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Originally posted by Lazarus
I wasn't really sure what to expect. My individual marks don't really mean much - obtaining them was simply the first step towards obtaining more general statistics. There is a long way to go before I'll be able to rewrite and improve SAM, but it's definitely possible. And, most of my aligned marks were higher than my raw marks purely because aligned marks are compressed upwards to a mark range of 50 - 100, whereas the raw marks typically span a greater range (e.g. 0 - 100).

No.

Aside from the fact that the items you listed would not be enough to accurately rank schools anyway, huge political dramas arise when results of individual students or schools are published - partially due to the Mt Druitt fiasco back in late 1996.

Section 5 of the Education Regulation 2001 (NSW) provides that:

(1) This clause applies to the following results:
...
(b) results of School Certificate and Higher School Certificate examinations and related assessments.
...
(5) Results to which this clause applies must not be publicly revealed in a way that ranks or otherwise compares the results of particular schools.
Whats other general statistics could you get?? Just fascinated, thats all

and what happened at Mt Druitt~~ Guess really shocking results:( if so shouldnt the kids entering highschool know the stantard of outcome that his/her HS provides to give him/her the best opportunity to do well ?? I'm no lawyer like you bro what equality seems lost if you unknowingling went to a really bad school causing you to be significantly disadvanatged when applying to study at uni or going to serach for a job!!
 

Toodulu

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Originally posted by Lazarus
You would want to request "raw examination marks (total weighted marks)" and "initial moderated assessment marks". Make sure you include any other relevant details, such as your student number.
very, very, very cool laz! extremely cool! (haha oops do i sound like a 12 year old)
the first one would be the exam raw mark, how about the 2nd? is that our hsc mark?
are there any other information we could ask for on that form?

also, is there any point in me requesting for a reduction in fees? i'm sure there'd be costs involved in finding and photocopying the documents. would it be possible to get my papers back or will i only get a piece of paper telling me the marks?
do you know whether i could specify that i want all of my individual marks for eng modules or is that unreasonable? :p

laz you are too cool!
 

Lazarus

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Originally posted by Snapwizard
Whats other general statistics could you get?? Just fascinated, thats all
Raw performance band cut-offs... raw means and standard deviations... possibly graphs showing the distributions of marks... and so on. Obtaining data relating to scaled marks is a bit more difficult; universities are exempted from the operation of the FOI Act.

Originally posted by Snapwizard
and what happened at Mt Druitt~~ Guess really shocking results:(
In that year and at that school, all students scored UAIs below 50, and the Daily Telegraph ran a defamatory front-page story entitled "THE CLASS WE FAILED". There's been a lockdown on information ever since then.

Originally posted by Snapwizard
if so shouldnt the kids entering highschool know the stantard of outcome that his/her HS provides to give him/her the best opportunity to do well ?? I'm no lawyer like you bro what equality seems lost if you unknowingling went to a really bad school causing you to be significantly disadvanatged when applying to study at uni or going to serach for a job!!
Well... looking at the UAIs of the students of a particular school isn't necessarily the best way to evaluate that school. The UAI is only designed to predict success in the first year of tertiary study - nothing else. If you, for example, looked at the UAIs of Ruse students, you'd see that the median UAI is roughly 99. Does this mean that Ruse is an incredibly good school, or simply that incredibly good students attend Ruse? You can't know. There are better measures of school performance. If you're really interested, research the "value-added" measure. :)

Originally posted by Toodulu
the first one would be the exam raw mark, how about the 2nd? is that our hsc mark?
The second mark is the mark which the Board reports as your examination mark, aligned with course standards.

Originally posted by Toodulu
are there any other information we could ask for on that form?
Well... you're able to ask for anything.

But there's no guarantee you'll get it. There are no precedents supporting the release of other types of information (yet). The Board's usual approach to novel requests seems to always be (from my experience) an initial outright rejection. You may have to pursue the request for some time.

Originally posted by Toodulu
also, is there any point in me requesting for a reduction in fees?
You can try. I didn't think it was worth the effort. I have no knowledge of what you would need to establish in order to successfully have the fee reduced. You'd most likely need to show that you're impecunious in some way, and would be deprived of some sort of necessity of life if you were to fork out the dough.

Originally posted by Toodulu
would it be possible to get my papers back or will i only get a piece of paper telling me the marks? do you know whether i could specify that i want all of my individual marks for eng modules or is that unreasonable? :p
Again, there's nothing preventing you from making the request. I doubt the Board would still have physical copies of your papers - I vaguely recall them being required to hold them for three months... and I don't see too much reason for them to keep the papers beyond that period.

I'd be very interested to see whether you're able to obtain a breakdown of your marks on a per-module basis. Such a request would involve additional issues... you could potentially correlate your mark for a particular question with your answer for that question, and dispute how the question was marked... which is almost an attack on an exam marker. The Board currently doesn't provide any facilities for students to have reviews of their examination marks conducted. Principals are allowed to appeal anomalous marks, but not students. Students are limited to 'clerical rechecks', which simply ensure that marks have been transferred from paper to computer correctly, and have been added up correctly, and so on. You would likely be required to satisfactorily address such issues when pursuing your request.

Perhaps you could ask for both the total mark and a breakdown of marks for each course, so that, even if the breakdown is refused, you still receive your total marks.

As a sidenote... I believe schools receive breakdowns of the marks of their students on a per-module basis, via a statistical results analysis package. I don't think they receive raw marks, though. Uncertain on this point.
 

ameh

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Originally posted by Lazarus
all students scored UAIs below 50, and the Daily Telegraph ran a defamatory front-page story entitled "THE CLASS WE FAILED". There's been a lockdown on information ever since then.

is there anywhere I can find this article online?
 

Snapwizard

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Well the newspaper was abit hash ...........but IMO, it really doesnt mean they shouldnt show ranks in every school!!

You said UAI is not a measure of intellgence and I agree........... but it is hard work, motivation and damn good teachers, I reckon they should rank the schools e.g. kid A and kid B who are similar at the start of yr 7 goes to the best and worest HS in NSW, the fellow students and their work ethic would have a huge impact on these two students and their overall outcome

I know they now have yr 7 literacy and math test very early in yr 7 and I would like to see the ranks for these test in each school and then the HSC ranks to see the overall improvement or downfall!!
 

04er

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awesome :cool: thanks for all those links Laz! :) ^^ jee that article stirred up quite some controversy!! I wanna see that class pic :( do ppl still go to that school???
 
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santaslayer

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Originally posted by 04er
awesome :cool: thanks for all those links Laz! :) ^^ jee that article stirred up quite some controversy!! I wanna see that class pic :( do ppl still go to that school???
I don't think the class pic would be available anywhere publicly, they would run the risk of being sued again! :p
 

jm1234567890

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for $30 would i be able to get more accurate scaling curves for all subjects and the conversion factor between aggregate and UAI?
 

04er

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Originally posted by santaslayer
I don't think the class pic would be available anywhere publicly, they would run the risk of being sued again! :p
:(
 

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