FactCheck: dumbed-down A-levels?
Updated on 20 August 2009
The exam results are out and, as predicted, the pass rate has risen yet again. So are students getting smarter or are the exams just getting easier?
The background
The results are out - and, as widely predicted, the A-level pass rate has improved for the 27th year in a row.
More than one in four exam entries (26.7 per cent) were awarded an A grade - up 0.8 percentage points on last year - and the overall pass rate went up by 0.3 points to 97.5 per cent.
It's a far cry from the old days, when A-levels passes in general, and top grades in particular, were fewer and further between. In 1975, 12.1 per cent of 17-year-olds passed two or more A-levels; 30 years later, this had almost tripled to 34.3 per cent.
From next year, an extra A* grade will be introduced to help distinguish between those at the top of the achievement spectrum. At the weekend, the Conservatives called for new league tables to distinguish between harder and softer A-level subjects.
So what's behind the increase in results? Are students getting smarter, and schools getting better, or are the exams just getting easier?
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The analysis
Durham University's Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring has been monitoring A-level standards since the 1980s as part of its ALIS (A-level information system).
Since 1988, pupils participating in ALIS have taken a general test of ability at the start of their A-level studies. It tests, for example, students' general level of vocabulary, as those with a more advanced knowledge of words would be expected to do better in their exams.
Students' results in the ability test can then be compared with their actual A-level performance, to provide a historical comparison.
The graph on page 99 of this report shows the average A-level grade achieved by students with the same level of ability test score from 1988 to 2007.
This shows an average increase of just over two grades - so a student who got a D in 1988 would now be expected to get a B grade. In maths, the increase is even more pronounced, at 3.5 grades, with a big increase in the late eighties and early nineties.
It's clear, from this, that candidates of the same ability are now being awarded higher grades. What's less clear is exactly what this means.
The exams regulator conducts five-yearly reviews of exams standards to check the difficulty of papers remains broadly consistent over time. But the structure of exams has changed - for example, coursework is pretty common practice now, as are modular courses which give students the opportunity to re-take parts of the exam.
"When you talk about exams getting easier, year on year there are fairly small differences - the big differences are when you look back over two decades," says Professor Peter Tymms, director of CEM.
"We need to bear in mind what A-levels are for: the government wanted to get more people to go to university, and there are now more people doing A-levels.
"Forty per cent of people used to fail A-levels - there's a whole generation of walking wounded who failed exams in sixties that they would have passed now, because university places used to be more tightly rationed."
Is it necessarily a bad thing that more people are passing A-levels? When put into this context, probably not - although problems occur for universities trying to distinguish between an increasing number of high-achieving students.
The verdict
Academic research shows that someone with the same general ability level would now be expected to score around two A-level grades higher than they did 20 years ago.
This seems pretty damning, although it doesn't necessarily mean the paper is "easier". Changes in the system such as the introduction of modular exams have made it more likely that students will be able to gain an A-level pass.
The pattern may change next year, at least at the top grades, when a new A* grade is introduced.
The sources:
IOD: education briefing book 2008
Cem Score report
Ofqual - standards over time
