Social moderation, assessment and assuring standards for accounting graduates

What’s the point of moderation? A discussion of the purposes achieved through contemporary moderation practices

“…The limited research on the subject suggests that systematic consensus moderation practice involving thorough debates of standards and student work can lead to a greater agreement on grades and confidence in the alignment with established learning outcomes (for example, Watty et al 2014). However, such moderation, though effective, is also expensive.…”

“…This view is reinforced by empirical studies of face-to-face consensus building (Watty et al 2014;Brawley et al 2013;Hancock et al 2013) and through teacher claims that such activities assist in the calibration of their standards (Bloxham and Boyd 2012). In addition, for people to benefit from moderation as a form of community building, those involved need to share an understanding of this purpose for the activity.…”

“…The UK approach and the Australian methods (Krause et al 2013;Group of Eight 2014;Watty et al 2014) all stress the contribution that external peer review can bring to promoting discussion on 'best practice in teaching and learning' (University of Sydney, 2014). Indeed, it can be argued that external examining and external peer review have the potential to promote community building in encouraging observation and discussion of standards across different institutions.…”

Assessment in Higher Education: The Potential for a Community of Practice to Improve Inter-marker Reliability

“…There are also questions about inter-marker reliability (see Sadler, 2009 and2013), specifically in the context of accounting (Watty et al, 2013). When investigating the somewhat intensive MSM associated with professional examinations, the CoP provides an analytical framework to aid an understanding of the way in which issues are discussed and resolved within the marking team and, thus, how response validity might be tested and inter-marker reliability might be improved through the EBS (Wenger, 1998).…”

External peer review of assessment: an effective approach to verifying standards?

“…A 2013 consultation document (Australian Government, 2013) also advocated a process for assuring standards combined with periodical external peer review of assessment. That consultation has yet to be turned into policy (April 2014) but, in the meantime, several contrasting models for interinstitutional peer review of assessment have been explored including the Group of Eight Quality Verification system, the Achievement Matters external peer review of accounting learning standards (Watty et al 2013) and a large 'proof of concept' project using an interinstitutional blind peer review of assessment methodology (Krause et al, 2013). An Australian Peer Review Network has been established 2 .…”