The final report of the Hayward review of qualifications and assessment, published last week, is “deeply disappointing” and must be “rigorously and radically” challenged, according to the University of Edinburgh’s emeritus professor of education policy, Lindsay Paterson.
In an article published on the website of the Reform Scotland think tank, Professor Paterson says that the review’s “methods were flawed and its recommendations vapid” because it failed to undertake “any systematic analysis of what is wrong with present assessment” and “of what other options might work”.
He says the review portrays all forms of assessment - except external exams - as “unproblematically desirable” and fails to provide “an honest appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of all kinds of assessment”, including essays, projects, investigations and invigilated internal examinations.
“Behind this review, there seems to have been no actual research into the status quo,” he writes. “The report’s account of what it calls the ‘current context’ is brief and superficial, one page out of 93 pages of main text.”
Professor Paterson says the main body of evidence cited by the review comes from “a series of large focus groups” - as well as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development review of 2021, “and a dismayingly ill-informed report on the history of Scottish assessment which the OECD also commissioned in that year”.
He says that is in contrast to previous assessment reforms, which typically started with “systematic evidence of how the current system was working”, including “voluminous statistical investigation of attainment and progression” and “specially commissioned research on social inequalities”.
Professor Paterson argues that consultation ought to be “part of the evidence gathering that might inform recommendations” but “opinions expressed in a consultation are not themselves evidence of a need for change”.
He adds: “It is as if a review of diagnostic procedures in the NHS were to be based primarily on the opinions of clinicians and patients. Important though these are, they are not the same - or as important - as properly scientific evaluation of what works.”
Ultimately, Professor Paterson concludes that - in the wake of the review - “the work of revising the assessment of individual subjects is no further forward”. He says that the review has “a few good ideas, but they are not worked out in any detail and their practicability is doubtful”.
The review - which published its final report last week - proposes an end to external exams for students in S4 and advocates for the introduction of a Scottish Diploma of Achievement, which would consist of three elements: “programmes of learning”, including subjects and courses already typically studied in the senior phase; the “personal pathway”, which will reflect students’ interests; and “project learning” to allow in-depth exploration of an issue, such as climate change.
Professor Paterson says the most interesting suggestion in the whole report is that “each student would work on an individually chosen project, which might span several years” but he predicts this would be “a nightmare for a school to manage”.
He is dismissive of the personal pathway, saying this would be unlikely to result in “anything other than bland summary, like the mostly uninformative headteachers’ reports that form part of students’ application to university”.
Professor Paterson concludes: “The need for reform to the assessment of individual courses is where this review had its origins, but it provides nothing other than a reiteration of that starting point. It gives no guidance on how the balance of exams and non-exam assessment might be specified in different subjects.
“That vagueness is an inevitable consequence of the review’s methods, because of the absence of any systematic analysis of what is wrong with present assessment, and of the strengths and weaknesses of all feasible forms of assessment.”
When launching the Hayward report last week, education secretary Jenny Gilruth said that she must run potentially “radical” reforms past teachers before pressing ahead with change.
