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If the student outperforms their peers on coursework, then they won't be punished, they will have an estimated score higher than their peers.

s1artibartfast 6y ago
yes, they would be higher than their peers at their school, but then penalized because the cohort before them performed poorly on the IB test. For the students who would have gone on to test well on the IB test, this is clearly a disadvantage. E.g. : 1) You are in the 10th percentile of your class. 2) Students from your school in the 10th percentile scored in the 20th percentile on the IB test last year 3) You are assigned a 20th percentile on the IB test you can not take. This sucks if you would have done better than the 20th percentile on the IB test. Why model an IB test score at all? just apply a weighing to the coursework grades if you want to standardize outcomes between schools. it would be more straight-forwarded.
- chongli 6y ago
  They modeled the scores because they couldn’t hold the exams this year due to the virus. As for your description, that’s a gross oversimplification. What they’ve actually done is predicted people’s test scores based on their performance in coursework relative to their peers. A person in the 10th percentile in coursework is already worse than 90% of their peers and is unlikely to go to university no matter what school they attend. On the other hand, a student in the 90th percentile of a low performing school is going to be fine. Their predicted score is going to be well above their peers.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    > They modeled the scores because they couldn’t hold the exams this year due to the virus. I said why make up a test score instead of just using weighted coursework. > As for your description, that’s a gross oversimplification. What they’ve actually done is predicted people’s test scores based on their performance in coursework relative to their peers. This is exactly what I described. taking someone's performance percentile in their school and predicting what they would score on the IB test. This appears to be exactly what they are doing >A person in the 10th percentile in coursework is already worse than 90% of their peers and is unlikely to go to university no matter what school they attend Sorry I was not more clear, I meant top 10th percentile. >On the other hand, a student in the 90th percentile of a low performing school is going to be fine. Their predicted score is going to be well above their peers. No, a student in the 90th (top 10th) percentile of coursework at a low performing school is the ones who are harmed. They will be assigned a higher IB test score than most of their school, but lower than the 90th (top 10th) percentile student in a school with a better track record on the IB test.
    - chongli 6y ago
      I said why make up a test score instead of just using weighted coursework. That's what they're doing. They're weighting someone's coursework by an estimate of how they'll do on the test, based on how well students at their school have done on the test in previous years relative to coursework in those years. No, a student in the 90th (top 10th) percentile of coursework at a low performing school is the ones who are harmed Of course, they are harmed by the fact that their school makes coursework too easy. The alternative, of course, is using unweighted coursework grades which harms the students at schools that make the coursework extra hard. The problem is that the IBO doesn't actually know what a student's abilities are until they write the exam. They also don't know how hard the coursework is at their school, in an absolute sense. They only know how hard the coursework is relative to the exam, based on a comparison of previous years' course grades with exam grades. Schools that consistently make coursework too easy will inflate the grades of their students. If those students underperform on the exam, the IBO will know that those schools are practicing grade inflation and adjust accordingly. That's all there is to it.

s1artibartfast 6y ago

yes, they would be higher than their peers at their school, but then penalized because the cohort before them performed poorly on the IB test. For the students who would have gone on to test well on the IB test, this is clearly a disadvantage. E.g. : 1) You are in the 10th percentile of your class. 2) Students from your school in the 10th percentile scored in the 20th percentile on the IB test last year 3) You are assigned a 20th percentile on the IB test you can not take. This sucks if you would have done better than the 20th percentile on the IB test. Why model an IB test score at all? just apply a weighing to the coursework grades if you want to standardize outcomes between schools. it would be more straight-forwarded.

chongli 6y ago
They modeled the scores because they couldn’t hold the exams this year due to the virus. As for your description, that’s a gross oversimplification. What they’ve actually done is predicted people’s test scores based on their performance in coursework relative to their peers. A person in the 10th percentile in coursework is already worse than 90% of their peers and is unlikely to go to university no matter what school they attend. On the other hand, a student in the 90th percentile of a low performing school is going to be fine. Their predicted score is going to be well above their peers.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  > They modeled the scores because they couldn’t hold the exams this year due to the virus. I said why make up a test score instead of just using weighted coursework. > As for your description, that’s a gross oversimplification. What they’ve actually done is predicted people’s test scores based on their performance in coursework relative to their peers. This is exactly what I described. taking someone's performance percentile in their school and predicting what they would score on the IB test. This appears to be exactly what they are doing >A person in the 10th percentile in coursework is already worse than 90% of their peers and is unlikely to go to university no matter what school they attend Sorry I was not more clear, I meant top 10th percentile. >On the other hand, a student in the 90th percentile of a low performing school is going to be fine. Their predicted score is going to be well above their peers. No, a student in the 90th (top 10th) percentile of coursework at a low performing school is the ones who are harmed. They will be assigned a higher IB test score than most of their school, but lower than the 90th (top 10th) percentile student in a school with a better track record on the IB test.
  - chongli 6y ago
    I said why make up a test score instead of just using weighted coursework. That's what they're doing. They're weighting someone's coursework by an estimate of how they'll do on the test, based on how well students at their school have done on the test in previous years relative to coursework in those years. No, a student in the 90th (top 10th) percentile of coursework at a low performing school is the ones who are harmed Of course, they are harmed by the fact that their school makes coursework too easy. The alternative, of course, is using unweighted coursework grades which harms the students at schools that make the coursework extra hard. The problem is that the IBO doesn't actually know what a student's abilities are until they write the exam. They also don't know how hard the coursework is at their school, in an absolute sense. They only know how hard the coursework is relative to the exam, based on a comparison of previous years' course grades with exam grades. Schools that consistently make coursework too easy will inflate the grades of their students. If those students underperform on the exam, the IBO will know that those schools are practicing grade inflation and adjust accordingly. That's all there is to it.