QUALITY CONTROL METHODS IN LARGE-SCALE ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES USING 'DOUBLE-MARKING' OR 'PARTIAL DOUBLE-MARKING'

Ensuring a standard of assessment in situations where marking panels are used is fraught with difficulties, particularly where essay-type responses are to be marked. This paper discusses statistical process control procedures, similar to those used in industry, to help moderate marking quality when ‘double-marking’ or ‘partial double-marking’ are used. When questions are assessed by the same two markers, the scores assigned to responses by each marker may be adjusted so that their assessments are on average equal in terms of location and scale. The paper also discusses methods of controlling sequential assessment, and demonstrates the application of these techniques in evaluating marker consistency, using data from school leaving examinations in geography.