Age standardisation in Kendrick/Reading

[BerkshireDad]

I feel this age standardization is unfair to older kids. Test is easy and there is nothing younger kids can not do that older kids can do. With adding marks to younger kids, is it not unfair to older kids?

[mitasol]

They don't add marks to younger kids.
https://www.nfer.ac.uk/research/centre- ... ile-ranks/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In a typical class in England and Wales, it is usual that most pupils are born between 1st September in one year and 31st August of the following year, which means that the oldest pupils are very nearly 12 months older than the youngest. Almost invariably in ability tests taken in the primary and early secondary years, older pupils achieve slightly higher raw scores than younger pupils. However, standardised scores are derived in such a way that the ages of the pupils are taken into account by comparing a pupil only with others of the same age (in years and months). An older pupil may in fact gain a higher raw score than a younger pupil, but have a lower standardised score. This is because the older pupil is being compared with other older pupils in the reference group and has a lower performance relative to his or her own age group.

[BerkshireDad]

But is it not the case that only youngest kid with 100% can achieve the maximum marks? Oldest kid can never get Maximum marks even though she has done 100%?

[Trust]

Yes that's true . It is not fair on elder kids. Though they do their best they can't get highest marks.

[Tinkers]

Its not a case of adding or taking away marks at all. They simply compare children of reh same age, then look at any statisticaldifferences between children of different ages. If theres no real difference then the standardised scores won’t be different for children of different ages with the same raw score. If there is a marked difference then there will be.

This way its fair for everyone

[stumpysmiler]

The younger kids are not just given extra marks because they're younger. It was explained to me on this forum recently that the scores for each child in each month are plotted on a graph i.e. all Sept born kids, all Oct born kids. So you end up with 12 graphs with a curve on. If the curves are all the same, no marks are changed. But if the graph for one month (say June) is noticeably "out" to the other graphs, then those children get a slight uplift. But if all children in June score well, then there is no uplift.

It does make me wince a little though that parents of older children think that it's fair that a younger child is not assisted. Their older child has probably, talked, read, calculated for many months (up to a year!!) more than the younger children, so how would it be fair to mark them all exactly the same?

You can tell I'm the parent of a younger child

[Tinkers]

But is it not the case that only youngest kid with 100% can achieve the maximum marks? Oldest kid can never get Maximum marks even though she has done 100%?

That is not the case. It depends on how well all the other chidlren born in that month have doen compared to how chidlren born in other months have done.

Its also possible, depending on how difficult the test is, to get maximum SS despite not getting anything like full marks.

[BerkshireDad]

stumpysmiler,

I am not against adding the marks to younger kids. But problem here is that test is not actually difficult that older kids can prove themselves. It is not that there are some topics are there that older kids can only answer.

[BerkshireDad]

Tinkers,

So you believe that oldest kid can get highest marks?

[scary mum]

They can get the highest standardised mark, but may need slightly higher raw marks to achieve it, depending on the cohort & the test. They can still get all the questions right in spite of being older! I'm guessing you have a child who is old in the year & hasn't done quite as well as expected, so you are trying to understand the system. On school gate gossip it doesn't seem fair, but the very reason for standardising is to make it fair.