Taking into consideration the unique relational position of convenors (Chairs) in PhD oral examinations, this qualitative study explores insights from 55 convenors at a research-intensive university in New Zealand into the ways academic staff developers can better prepare doctoral supervisors and examiners for oral examinations. One striking…

Variation in examiner stringency is an ongoing problem in many performance settings such as in OSCEs, and usually is conceptualised and measured based on scores/grades examiners award. Under borderline regression, the standard within a station is set using checklist/domain scores and global grades acting in combination. This complexity requires a…

For many practical purposes, it is often assumed that the quality of a marker is directly related to their seniority. At its extreme, the assumption is that the most senior marker (the Principal Examiner) is always right even in cases where large numbers of junior markers have a collectively different opinion regarding the mark that should be…

We investigated effects of examiners' ascribed likability and examiners' gender on test performance during a standardized face-to-face testing situation assessing self-estimated and de facto verbal knowledge. One hundred fourteen nonpsychology students were individually tested by one of 22 examiners. A moderated regression analysis…

This paper uses the remote interactions of professional examiners working for a UK-based awarding body as a vehicle for discussing the benefits of the use of different methods for analysing such discourse. Communication is an area of interest for sociocultural theory because it can potentiate cognitive shifts in participants and affords learning.…

Despite the abundant literature on educational measurement there has been relatively little work investigating the psychological processes underpinning marking. This research investigated the processes involved when examiners mark examination responses. Scripts from two geography A-level examinations were used: one requiring short and medium…

A study employing a repeated measure crossover design found that 34 preschool handicapped students performed significantly better with familiar than unfamiliar examiners on tasks requiring a high level of symbolic mediation. No such differential performance was found on items demanding a low level of symbolic mediation. Differential performance in…

Microanalysis of test-related behaviors of six examiners and 15 preschool speech- and language-handicapped children revealed that the children spoke significantly more often with greater complexity when tested by familiar examiners. Differences between familiar and unfamiliar examiners included use of silence, eye contact, and language style and…

Examined degree to which agreement in interviewer ratings may be influenced by training, use of structured conventional interviews, or situational interviews. Results from 42 managers experienced as interviewers revealed no training effect on rating agreement; impact of situational format on consistency in assessments of applicant suitability was…

The article focuses on Fraser Institute's (Vancouver, British Columbia) "Report Card on Elementary Schools in British Columbia." The rating of a school is based on reading, writing, and numeracy levels for both Grade 4 and Grade 7 students, gender differences in reading and numeracy in Grade 7, and the percentage of students not meeting…

The grading reliability of the General Certificate of Education (GCE) Examinations in England was investigated by correlating GCE grades awarded to examination papers during the normal grading period and grades awarded to the same papers by a senior GCE examiner after completion of the normal GCE grading procedure. (Author/MJL)

The development of procedures by which test publishers can screen individual purchasers to minimize the possibility of test misuse is described. The Test User Qualifications Working Group (TUQWoG), an outgrowth of the Joint Committee on Testing Practices, was formed to address the prevention of test misuse through improved methods of screening…

One hundred eighty limited-English-speaking college students from the Philippines, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan were administered the Michigan Test of Aural Comprehension (MTAC). An analysis of the MTAC indicated that the three unrestricted forms of the test show satisfactory internal consistency reliability comparable to that…

Examined the effects of race of examiner and level of mistrust of Whites on the Stanford-Binet performance of 105 Black elementary school children. The Black examiner-high mistrust group scored significantly higher than the White examiner-high mistrust group, and significantly higher than the Black examiner-low mistrust group. (WAS)

Examined the main and interactive effects of feedback sequence (negative-positive versus positive-negative) and expertise of the rater on perceptions of feedback accuracy in graduate students (N=107). Results suggested that feedback sequence interacts with expertise of the rater, locus of control, and self-esteem in affecting perceptions of…