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1. Inherently fairer? Yes, because it demonstrates an ongoing development and a learning curve. The student who progresses from let's call it level 2 up to level 5 has demonstrated something more than their peer who progresses from level 4 to level 5 in the same time period. https://twitter.com/examscot/status/1297488860855898112
2. That is surely a quality that 'end users' such as employers or universities would want to know, and it's not acknowledged in a single letter examination performance certificate. In addition, the use of coursework removes the glass ceiling on the very best.
3. Students are limited to 100% in their exam performance, because we have put arbitrary limits to performance in place - 'give this answer 2 marks'. What if the best students are capable of answers that are worth 4 marks, or capable of answers that have no limits?
4. Coursework has the capacity to reflect the students' capabilities without those random boundaries whose only use is the facility to measure students' performance against each other.
5. Is coursework fairer in practical terms? Well, there can be problems. We would need to pay close attention to provenance, something we don't do because it's time consuming. But to reject it because it's hard work is a missed opportunity.
6. As well as a piece of writing, students should submit documentation that shows the provenance of their ideas and development. Creative writing courses often do this - the reflective 'journal' of writing is as much an assessment as the writing itself.
7. This provenance can be the subject of a discussion between teacher and student, and can't be 'plagiarised' in the same way a piece of writing that is plonked on your desk with no hinterland can be. Materials I produced years ago for Education Scotland addressed this.
8. At the time, I hoped teachers would see that it provided a bulwark against the influence of tutors or the possibility of plagiarism that could even become part of the submission to the SQA. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, but could be an option for the future.
9. And of course, any coursework needs to be the subject of rigorous moderation. We are used to that: I grew up as a teacher having external moderators in all the time from SQA and SCOTVEC. The trouble is, it's expensive and time consuming.
10. Only a real commitment of resources to making the assessment system fairer and a genuine measure of students' abilities will move us forward. I suspect we'll have a few tinkerings to appease parents about 'rigour' and teachers' about 'workload' though...
