In part 2 of this two-part connected series, Dr Brian McGrail, Lecturer (Social Sciences), Centre for Open Learning↗️, provides an overview of academic and pedagogical expectations of the role within UK higher education and reflects on how this role interlinks with other aspects of quality control. He introduces the formal language of Advance HE, like distinctions between quality standards, academic standards, and national standards, along with three aspects of assessment diversity (tools, tasks, and people).
My previous post (Becoming an External Examiner, Part 1: why and what’s involved?↗️) outlined the reasons for considering external examination within the career and vocational role of higher education teaching staff. It also analysed the basic activities and functions of the external examiner. Here, consideration is extended to the academic expectations placed on external examination (by Advance HE) within the UK higher education system. I also charter management of typical dilemmas and achievement of ‘best practice’ within external examination.
Language of Advance HE: Four elements
According to Advance HE (2021), external examination has four core elements:
- maintenance of Academic Standards to guarantee minimum quality in acceptable output (in medicine, will patients be safe?).
- guarding National Standards to prevent inter-institutional ‘grade inflation’.
- reviewing fairness via Process Checking to ensure assessments and classifications are “reliable, fair and transparent” (Advance HE, 2018, p.3); and
- provide advice and guidance as Critical Friend so teaching practitioners gets things ‘right’.
Research undertaken into external examination (Quality Assurance Agency / HEA, 2013; Bloxham et al., 2015; Higher Education Academy, 2015) indicated these elements conflict, such that many external examiners make ‘critical friend’ their top priority when this element should follow the others. The relationships entailed by external examination mean the process depends on ‘good will’ (between examiner and staff in the ‘commissioning’ department). Hence, a balance has to be struck in forming working relationships while maintaining sufficient distance to evaluate adequately. Generally, the role of external examination has been under-researched. There is a relative dearth of literature on the subject; not least because each national ‘system’ tends to be unique.
Sources of variation and social calibration
One dilemma confronting any external examiner is acceptance of wide ‘variations’ between individuals, institutions, and educational cultures. Three areas of variation are of note: People, Tasks, and Tools. The classic variation in people, when given the same paper to evaluate, is pursuit of different goals (or ‘outputs’). Even with goal-oriented ‘checklists’, individuals can prioritise items differently such that trying to ‘strap things down’ doesn’t always work. Successful external examination requires flexibility, discretion, and an ability to respond to exclusive situations. That is, each department any external examiner enters will require understanding and interpretation of a different culture from their own (‘home’) department. ‘Rules’ on conventions need to be interpreted and not simply ‘applied’. Consequently, such departmental cultural (and pedagogical) variations also lead to different tasks being used to assess performance, thereby making comparison complex. Finally, even when tasks are similar (essays / presentations), evaluation tools (such as moderation processes or the marking schemes) will vary.
Advance HE advice is not to worry about such variation since it is normal and expected. External examiners require understanding of multiple acceptable pathways whilst ‘lack’ of variation in tasks may be problematic precisely because people and tools vary. Naturally, this problem can lead to grade inflation (affecting the four Advance HE elements mentioned above) though in an unconscious fashion – no-one within the ‘culture’ realises their doing or causing it. And this is one central point at which an external (from another culture) can step in and make a real difference.
Possibly, ‘best practice’ includes social calibration which entails teachers and external examiners conversationally sharing knowledge of standards. Social calibration is not moderation, which focuses on agreeing grades. Rather, social calibration seeks to ‘tune’ the assessors via shared knowledge about the meaning of standards (what counts as ‘good’ at a specific sectoral level). However, as formal calibration is time-consuming (costly), the external examiner acts as one conduit for such knowledge sharing across institutions. More generally, calibration practices align with contemporary pedagogical principles (including The University of Edinburgh’s assessment and feedback principles and priorities), which involve students in assessment co-production by opening what could be called a ‘black box’ of assessment and evaluation – what is it that teachers and (internal and external) examiners are ‘looking for’ when they undertake their assessment roles.
This blog post for Teaching Matters is developed from a Social Sciences CPD seminar at the Centre for Open Learning, The University of Edinburgh (held on Monday 20th Feb 2023).
References
Advance HE (2018) Professional Development Course for External Examiners (Remote Delivery): Participants Handbook. London: Advance HE / Office for Students.
Advance HE (2021) Online Professional Development Course for External Examiners: Participant Handbook. York: Advance HE.
Bloxham, S with J. Hudson, B. den Outer, M. Price, (2015) External peer review of assessment: an effective approach to verifying standards? Higher Education Research and Development, 34 (6) pp. 1069-1082.
Higher Education Academy, 2015. A review of external examining arrangements across the UK. Available at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rereports/Year/2015/externalexam/Title,104316,en.html [Accessed December 2016].
Quality Assurance Agency, Higher Education Academy, 2013. External examiners understanding and use of academic standards. Available at: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/External-Examiners-Report.pdf [Accessed December 2016]
Brian McGrail
Dr Brian McGrail is a Lecturer (Social Sciences) and Course Organiser in the Centre for Open Learning, University of Edinburgh, where he teaches and designs courses on Access, International Foundation, and Short Courses (Open Studies) Programmes. He is also an Associate Lecturer with the Open University and has specialised in adult returner education for 25 years. Brian is currently External Examiner for Lifelong Learning (Access and Study Abroad Experience) at University of Glasgow and for Foundation Pathways at University of Derby. http://linkedin.com/in/brian-mcgrail-5a579034↗️
Brian McGrail’s OpenLearn Profile – OpenLearn – Open University↗️
Brian McGrail (academia.edu)↗️
www.socialisingsense.net ↗️
