‘A’ Level Grade Inflation in the UK
August 7th, 2007 by Stephen
It is almost that time of year again where we in the UK go into a period of collective angst about rising pass rates in the A level exams being a sign of the dumbing down of our education system.
Since 1982 the A level pass rate has risen every single year, and whereas only 68.2% of candidates passed in 1982 (grades A to E), the pass rate was 96.2% in 2005, and we are moving ever closer to 100% - if you sit the exam, you pass it.
However, that is not the whole story. I obtained figures from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority web site for 1992 - 2001, and also 2004 and 2005, and produced the following histogram:
You can see the gradual improvement of grades from 1992 onwards, but there is a sharper improvement for 2004 and 2005, even allowing for my two years of missing data. This is explained by the introduction of the A-S level, because now those who should not be entering the exam are being weeded out before they take A2. It is therefore not surprising that there is a sharp improvement for those years, although it seems likely that the same general improving trend is continuing.
Government and those with an interest in the A level system argue that the year on year improving trend demonstrates rising standards. There may be some truth to this - or at least it may be that technology such as the Internet has provided students with much greater access to information than before, and has thus allowed improved educational attainment. However it is noteworthy that other exams such as the International Baccalaureate do not demonstrate this improving trend. It is also not reasonable to suppose that even with an improving ternd, there would not be the occasional year when pass rates would actually fall, or at least rise imperceptibly.
No, it seems much more likely that what we are seeing is grade inflation.
That does not mean that (a) A levels are easy. They most certainly are not. Nor that (b) the harder A level was more desireable. It may be that a 96.2% pass rate is actually more desirable than an exam that failed a third of the people that took it.
The problem lies with attempting to use the results to make judgements about the academic abilities of students. With 23% of all students taking the exam now getting a grade A, how do you discern the top class students? And how do you compare a student now with a student 25 years ago?
Unfortunately neither the QCA nor any other body has accurate figures prior to 1992. Consequently I have made some extrapolations based on the 1982 figures that we do have, and assuming a rather simplistic steady rise between 1982 and 1992 I have estimated grade boundaries for all of these years. The resulting histogram is here:
Now you can look at this chart and make the rather bold (if not entirely sound) assumption that, say, a grade B in 1985 would be a grade A now. If you took your exams in the 1980s, you can convert them to new currency! (If you got straight As in the 1980s, then this will be particularly accurate!)
Now pass rates are rising year on year, but it turns out that A grades are rising even faster. There is something quite interesting going on here. Look at this third histogram I have produced, this time comparing the spread of grades for three different years:
Notice that in 1992 the spread of grades, whilst slightly skewed, is broadly what one might expect: a normal distribution. The mean grade tallies with the mode and median, so that by each type of average we see that grade D is the mean/mode/median average. This is what one might expect from a mixed ability age group going into these exams.
But notice the trend - increasingly the mean and mode averages are being squashed towards the higher grades, with more and more students achieving As, Bs and Cs and fewer and fewer achieving lower grades.
This is problematic, as the division between D and E becomes increasingly irrelevant, and it becomes harder and harderto recognise which students have really achieved the gold standard in this exam.
But it is only fair that I add some caveats. Not all subjects show these trends, and at least part of the uplift in grades can be attributed to students choosing subjects in which they are more likely to do well. Grade inflation makes it hard to tell good candidates from the best candidates, but it does not necessarily indicate a falling in the standards on the exam paper itself.
So tell me what you think. Is this analysis flawed? Should I add in other graphs (e.g. number of candidates, or the uplift in pass rate?) Have I misrepresented the facts here? Please leave comments and I’ll try to take this analysis further.
[…] Following on from my post last week, I have been collecting more data and extending my analysis of A level results. One of the points I made in my original posting was that since 2002, the new ‘A’ level syllabus and the split between AS and A2 ‘A’ levels has caused a definite jump in the figures. This jump in pass rate is presumed to be caused by the fact that weaker candidates who do badly at AS level will not go on to take the A2. This would be expected to go hand in hand with a drop in overall candidates at A2. […]
Love your graph, particularly the one that goes back to 1980!
Fancy updating it for the last couple of years?
BW
R.
Actually, the souce for your 1992 tables is obvious, but what was your source for the 1982 figures? Sorry to be a pain!!
BW
R.
Hi Richard,
The 1982 figures were aggregated historical figures for that year specifically. I forget my exact source. I should have noted it sorry. However, I will try and locate it again and add a citation. Unlike the QCA figures, the 1982 figures were not broken down by subject.
I will be udating the tables again this summer when the next set of figures are released. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can add some more detailed breakdowns.
Thanks for your comments.
Stephen
i have just taken my alevels and they are much easier than the past papers we have done in class
I was reading through this article today, and I completely disagree with anyone who suggests or says that A-Levels are becoming easier. They are NOT!!! Having taken A-Levels myself this year, I know exactly how very difficult they are. I am awaiting results and am expecting to get BBC/BCC, and I have to put in a considerable amount of effort into my studies to attain these grades. In preparation for my exams, I have done all exam papers from 1999 onwards; and the 2006 paper appeared to be just as difficult as the 1999 paper.
I agree with the author that the introduction of AS-Levels has meant that the weaker students are not allowed to do A-Levels and so A-Level results are only reflective of the able and hence, they would be excellent. Yet another fact not mentioned is that students are allowed to do retakes, if they so wish to, and this in turn, allows them to boost their results up to the desired grade - something that students in the 1980’s and 1990’s couldn’t do.
You must remember though that with BBC in the 1980’s, you could go very far,and yet the same grades today don’t get you very many places. I am going to a medioca university in the UK while someone with BBC in the 1980’s would have at least guaranteed themselves a place at UCL.
Sarah,
Thanks for your reply. However, candidates have always been allowed to retake exams. This is not the issue. A retake is useful for a student who understands the material but performs badly on the day - or one who requires some extra time to understand the material.
Academic research from the office of national statistics, published today, bears out what these articles have been saying. Students of an ability such that they may have expected to get grade Cs in the 1980s can now expect to get grade A at ‘A’ level. In Mathematicsm students who would have expected a ‘D’ will now expect a grade ‘A’.
Are the questions easier? In some cases yes. But even if they are not - it would appear that the marks being awarded are higher for the answers to those questions.
Could you get into UCL with BBC in the 1980s? Not likely - although it would depend on the course. But if the same University is asking for straight As now, what does that tell you about the currency that is the exam grade?
The problem for universities, now that nearly a quarter of candidates get the top grade in any examination, is knowing who the best students are. Too many people are getting the top grade, and those who took their exams 20 years ago may feel quite rightly that the calibre of these A grade students is not what it used to be.
Hi Stephen
I’ve just stumbled across your blog Googling for a chart of the A level pass rate.
It’s excellent, and your charts are first rate. You have obviously devoted many hours to rooting out some of the inconvenient facts the QCA tries to keep hidden.
As you say, it may be that an A Level exam that passes 96.2% of candidates is exactly what we want- the head of the QCA certainly thinks so. But I suspect the rest of us don’t quite see it that way.
The Sunday Times/Durham/ONS study underlined just how much grade inflation there’s been in just two decades- 2 whole grades… an astonishing 3.5 grades in Maths…
The A levels are still measuring something, but they sure ain’t identifying top performance any more.
PS Do you by any chance have a chart of the simple pass rate going back further than 1982? If not, do you happen to know if the dumbing down had started by then? Weren’t the University Exam Boards still in charge and safeguarding standards then?
Hi again
Hope you won’t mind but I’ve ripped off one of your excellent charts here- http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2007/08/pass-or-fail.html
Best wishes
Wat Tyler
This is a more complex problem than a simple question of whether A levels are getting ‘easier’ or not.
When I took my A levels (1979) there was a fixed percentage of candidates awarded an ‘A’, a fixed percentage getting a ‘B’ etc.. Strangely, this was slightly different for different subjects, but generally around the top 10% got an ‘A’ (in Physics it was 8% and in English 12%). Now we have ‘norm referencing’ - the idea being that if you meet a certain standard, you get a certain grade. As around 25% now get an ‘A’ it is certainly more possible to get an ‘A’, but this doesn’t prove that the absolute standard is lower. The problem is that, with a changing syllabus, how do you ensure that the standard stays the same, is consistent between subjects, or that it isn’t being changed? You can’t.
Having said that, the syllabus almost certainly is less demanding in many areas. I looked at the A level Physics syllabus recently and was surprised to see it almost denuded of mathematics. When I asked a teacher why, they explained that it is now often taken by people who have no interest in pursuing careers that also require maths, such as physics or engineering, but who need physics to get on other courses, such as medicine. Hence it has been altered to respond to ‘customer demand’.
On the other hand, it is common now to start 4 or 5 A levels and reduce the number to 3 or 4 in the second year of the sixth form. 2 or 3 used to be the usual number for most students. It may not be altogether a bad thing if standards in indvidual subjects are somewaht lower but a wider range of subjects are taken. Too much specialisation too early was always one of the criticisms of A levels.
Lastly, can I just comment that I hope that English isn’t one of Sarah Cole’s subjects. “Medioca” indeed!
Wat, you are welcome to repost the graphs. I don’t have any figures prior to 1982, although at that time the figures were largely capped year on year. The argument being that in a sufficiently large sample, the top 10% of one population should have the same ability as the top 10% of another.
Statistically this was quite right, but people could not quite get their minds around the idea that someone could provide the same answer in two different years, and get an A grade in one year and a B grade in another.
Unfortunately, people also seem to be imbued with a belief that the same answer given to two different examiners will yield the same grade. And of course, that has never been true.
So marginal cases are always tricky - but at least in th 1980s and before, you knew what an A level was worth, regardless of the year it was taken.
A Levels are definately getting easier
My Mother went to Cambridge and when I looked at her Maths A Level paer compared to mine I was shocked, Her Exam was so much harder than mine,
I luckily wasnt going to do Mathematics at University and am at Manchester, doing Management science and Economics
My A Level Maths paper seemed a breeze compared to hers, I got an A but still, accross the board, A Levels are getting easier most definately