Code used to calculate qualification grades in summer 2020 published
Ofqual has published computer code that it developed to support the awarding of grades for GCSE, AS and A levels in summer 2020, although it was not used, except in the small number of cases where they were higher than a candidate’s centre assessment grade.
Ofqual published this code to be transparent, allowing others to review and evaluate this aspect of its approach.
The code was not the final code used. Exam boards were responsible for determining the final code that supported the production of calculated grades in a way that would work with each of their individual computer systems. The code it produced was designed to assist exam board compliance by demonstrating how its relevant regulatory requirements could be implemented.
More information about the approach it took in the summer, including an explanation of how standardisation worked, can be found in, ‘awarding GCSE, AS & A levels in summer 2020: interim report’.
The code is written in ‘R’. ‘R’ is a free software environment and programming language that uses publicly available online libraries. It is a flexible language and therefore the code created could have been written in different ways. The code includes comments written in English to help those using it.
Ofqual is currently working with UCAS, the Department for Education and Ofsted to make available the data it used in 2020 awarding and its outcomes, alongside a wider range of data, to support further transparency. This will allow further analysis – including consideration of the relationship between summer 2020 results and other measures (such as university application and attainment data and, eventually, degree outcomes) – and further review of the model we used. Ofqual plans to make the range of data available to independent, accredited researchers via the Office for National Statistics’ Secure Research Service. This data-sharing project aims to support Ofqual and the wider system to learn from this summer’s awarding process.
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