Does calibration reduce variability in the assessment of accounting learning outcomes?

O’Connell, Brendan; Lange, Paul De; Freeman, Mark; Hancock, Phil; Abraham, Anne; Howieson, Bryan; Watty, Kim

doi:10.1080/02602938.2015.1008398

Cited by 36 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The ultimate goal is to align personal standards frameworks and academic standards within and across institutions with those expected by the discipline, professions, subject and accrediting bodies, employers, and the public (Sadler, 2011). Social calibration carries considerable weight with educational practitioners (O'Connell et al, 2016;Watty et al, 2013), even though it is at an early stage in development.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Entry qualification (Thornes 2012a;Bachan 2017) Age (Richardson & Woodley 2003) Gender (Bondi 1996;Smith 2007) Socio-economic background (Thiele et al 2016) School type (Bachan 2017) and/or geographical location (Singleton 2010;Gibbons & Vignoles 2012) ASSESSORS Assessment practices and standards (Healey 2010) Assessment methods (Knight 2006) Assessment standards (Price 2005;Bloxham 2009;Hudson et al., 2017) Marking criteria / procedures 2016a;Sadler 2014;Bloxham et al 2015) Moderation practices (Sadler 2013;O'Connell et al 2016) Classification mechanisms (Hefce 2015) F I G U R E 3 Explaining the variability of assessor standards in the context of departmental, institutional, and sector-wide attributes and influences (building on Chapman, 1993).…”

Section: Institutional Attributesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Degree outcomes and national calibration: Debating academic standards in UK Geography

Wyse

Page

Walkington

et al. 2019

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In this short intervention we report on work in progress by Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy) in collaboration with professional bodies such as the RGS-IBG, which seeks to respond to public concerns about "grade inflation" in relation to degree outcomes. We present an updated analysis of degree outcomes in UK geography for 2010-2016 showing a strong correlation between average A-level points score on entry and the proportion of good degrees awarded by UK geography departments. We then go on to report on the results of pilot training activities within the discipline to increase the use of social calibration techniques as a means of providing transparent assurance about the high quality of assessment practices. We conclude that there is good reason to engage positively and actively with the public debate about academic standards and we make the case for regular social calibration exercises to share marking practices across multiple institutions as a potential means of ensuring consistency, reliability and clarity in academic standards. K E Y W O R D Sacademic standards, assessment, calibration, degree outcomes, grade inflation Access to Supporting Data: Due to confidentiality agreements with research funders, supporting data can only be made available to researchers subject to a non-disclosure agreement. Details of the data and how to request access are available from the Head of Research and Higher Education, RGS-IBG.---

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Institutional Attributesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Degree outcomes and national calibration: Debating academic standards in UK Geography

Wyse

Page

Walkington

et al. 2019

Area

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“…Watty et al (2014) describe a calibration activity where a disciplinary community came together to discuss exemplars of students' work, compared their judgements and tried to reach consensus. There is increasing research on calibration as a way of establishing academic standards within a discipline (Watty et al 2014;O'Connell et al 2016). Chapter 6 discusses ways of bolstering marker reliability.…”

Section: Validity and Reliabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education

McConlogue¹

2020

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“…In response to the recommendations of O'Connell et al, (2015), O'Connell et al, (2016 and Watty et al (2014) our schema in figure 1 shows how appropriate leadership outcomes can be developed by benchmarking external learning standards, in the case of Australia -AALS. As reflected upon earlier in the paper, through alignment of our learning outcomes and our activities and assessment practices with external accounting learning standards, we can provide evidence of meeting the demands of our stakeholders (Birrell & Betts, 2018;O'Connell et al, 2015).…”

Section: A Schema For the Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

Leadership-in-teams, ready, willing and able: perspectives of international accounting students

Oosthuizen

Lange

Wilmshurst

et al. 2020

MEDAR

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Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the reasons why international accounting students in higher education in Australia do not accept leadership roles in academic teams, considering the importance employers attach to leadership and teamwork graduate attributes. Design/methodology/approach Adopting the Keating et al. (2014) ready, willing and able (RWA) leadership framework, this qualitative study uses a narrative textual approach to analyse the data from responses to open-ended questions recorded in interviews with a sample of Master of Professional Accounting (MPA) students (N = 12) undertaking leadership-in-team roles in a management and cost Accounting unit (N = 110) within an Australian higher education accounting program. Findings The results of this study suggest that a lack of past work experience disadvantages accounting students in being ‘ready’ to adopt leadership roles in teams. Self-interested behaviour results in students not being ‘willing’ to adopt leadership roles. Students perceive business simulation and work-integrated learning activities to hold the potential to improve their ‘ability’ to lead. Practical implications The study offers a conceptual schema for student leadership development, suggesting that accounting curricula in higher education should include the assessment of scaffolded leadership development activities. Mentorship roles in academic teams should also be explored. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first application of the RWA framework to explore accounting students’ predisposition to accepting leadership roles in teams. Informed by the student narrative, the authors offer a future focused RWA schema as a practical guide for educators to embed leadership development in the accounting curriculum.

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Does calibration reduce variability in the assessment of accounting learning outcomes?

Cited by 36 publications

References 26 publications

Degree outcomes and national calibration: Debating academic standards in UK Geography

Degree outcomes and national calibration: Debating academic standards in UK Geography

Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education

Leadership-in-teams, ready, willing and able: perspectives of international accounting students

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