Reliability In The Marking Of Distance Education Examinations

Abstract

Forty examiners met at the ZIPAM Centre in Zimbabwe to mark scripts produced by Bachelor of Education (Administration) students who had taken distance education courses in Research Methods, Schools Management, Leadership and Supervision, Educational Planning and Policy Studies. Initial training of the examiners was given through/i lectures, seminars and the marking of "dummy" scripts in order to address the question of marker reliability and to standardize the marking procedure. After lengthy discussions between markers and moderators of the "dummy scripts" an attempt to iron out differences between those markers who gave a wide range of scores for the same scripts was made. Using revised and more elaborate marking schemes the examiners, who were continuously monitored after marking every four scripts, were then asked to mark the ’live’ scripts. The results indicated that there was no complete reliability in the marking. There was, however, a slight increase in the overall reliability of marking noticed between the initial stage of ’dummy’ marking and the final stage of ’live’ marking which occurred after the brainstorming session.