Teachers are preparing to submit their students’ grades to exam boards by 18 June, and the question on many minds is probably “how do I make sure I’m doing it right?”

There’s lots of discussion about managing bias and being objective, but how do you know your approach will achieve a fair result and avoid falling foul of any unconscious bias in the results that you issue?

There are clear principles you can follow to give your students as fair a grade as possible, and these practical approaches will help you to maximise objectivity and minimise unconscious bias.

GCSE and A-level results: Steps teachers can take to ensure fair grades

1. Understand ‘unconscious bias’

The operative word here is “unconscious”. Unconscious bias is when we unintentionally favour one person or group of people over another but we are unaware that we’re doing it. 

You want your grades to be fair and accurate, so it’s very important to minimise unconscious bias - for example, in relation to ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, age or physical/mental disability.

Everyone has unconscious biases, but it can be overcome.

2. Understand when unconscious bias can happen

Everyday life and work can compromise your objectivity and allow unconscious bias to creep in. You can guard against this. Aim to make decisions when you are at your least: 

• Emotional: be aware that judgements can be affected by strong feelings when you’re making decisions.
• Tired: set aside time when you “work at your best” for assessment activity.
• Distracted: make headspace so you can give the task your undivided attention.

3. Avoid cognitive overload

We all use our working memory for information that we need temporarily, like instructions for doing a task.

However, there are times when working memory can be overloaded with information (particularly if we do two things at once or are tired, stressed or rushed).

Unconscious bias is most likely to happen in these overloaded situations. Make sure that you have a clear head. Try to focus on one thing at a time and set up your routine to stop this from happening.

4. Take a step-by-step approach

Use a step-by-step approach where each step is clearly planned to lead logically on to the next. This will help you to minimise unconscious bias by focusing on one thing at a time. For example: 

• Step one: collect up the information you have.
• Step two: decide how to integrate that information.
• Step three: make decisions based on this information.

5. Develop initial grades

Once you have identified common assessment sources and considered how to integrate them, you can plan your procedure for developing initial grades.

What will you do in cases where you’re missing some information? The most important consideration for reducing unconscious bias while doing this must be to use objective information, but there are other things you can do, too.

6. Get into a routine

Develop a procedure to generate grades for every student that includes how to weight your evidence and what to do when a student’s information is incomplete or ambiguous.

Always think of each student individually and use the objective evidence that you trust the most to make your final decision. 

A consistent procedure will reduce the likelihood of bias. You’ll have more attention to give to the task because you have already worked out the procedure. 

7. Take your time

Decisions made slowly and deliberately are less prone to bias than those made hastily. Give yourself plenty of time to set provisional grades for all students in your teaching group (or if you are standardising across several teaching groups, to review all students taking the subject).

You may need to refer to one set of evidence in one session and another in a further session.

Try not to consider some students in one session and other students in a different session, as that may lead to inconsistencies between them.

Give your decision-making the best chance by setting aside time for: 

• marking and moderation.
• systemic approaches (to provide the appropriate space for decisions to be carefully taken).
• enquiry, challenge and justification.

8. Carry out a final sense check

Once you’ve decided on grades, the last thing to do is a final sense check. Here are some pointers: 

• Record provisional grades for students in the current assessments before you consider how students at your centre performed in previous years.
• Review how groups of similar students at your centre tend to perform relative to their peers. For example, does one major group’s performance stand out every year and do your grades reflect this?  If so, is this fair? If not, do you understand why?
•  What evidence do you have to confirm any trends or changes?

We wish you and your students all the very best - we’re here for you every step of the way.

This guidance is taken from wider training and support from AQA’s research team and Dr Clare Jonas