Age Standardisation

[anotherdad]

There's a lengthy and very detailed explanation of how age standardisation works on this site. There seems to be a view in some quarters that the testing authority pre-determine the level of standardisation they will apply and that this year, they've been overly-generous. That's not how it works. It's not "fiddling", "scientific junk" or "pseudo-science" just because it's not understood.

People enter this process of their own volition, and age standardisation is a known aspect of it. If you don't think age standardisation is appropriate or fair, lobby to have it removed from the testing in future years. You don't get to choose how much adjustment is required. The cohort data determines that and your child is part of that cohort. Complaining about the level of adjustment when your own children have contributed to the cohort data is strange.

[mitasol]

Age standardisation has been imposed on the schools who have been insisting for years that there was no statistical difference between older and younger candidates. The school adjudicator did not agree with their analysis.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... h_2018.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

that the admission arrangements currently in operation are unfair to girls who are born in the summer months. This does not comply with Paragraph 14, which states that “In drawing up their admission arrangements, admission authorities must ensure that the practices and the criteria used to decide the allocation of school places are fair, clear and objective.” For the same reason the arrangements do not comply with paragraph 1.31 of the Code which provides that “Tests for all forms of selection must ...give an accurate reflection of the child’s ability...”. In reaching this conclusion, I emphasise that my concern is not that the school’s tests per se fail to give an accurate reflection of the child’s ability but rather that their use when not age standardised fails to do so. There may or may not be tests which can give an accurate reflection of innate ability without age standardisation. Currently, the school does not use an age standardisation process. I am of the view that the implementation of such a process would redress this unfairness for summer born girls and therefore I uphold this element of the objection. The school has said it a letter dated 26 January 2018: “It has always been the case that as and when our approach illustrated the need for an age standardisation adjustment it would be applied....”

There was some discussions on the forum.
https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum ... =5&t=54175" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum ... hp?t=54151" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[htm]

There's a lengthy and very detailed explanation of how age standardisation works on this site. There seems to be a view in some quarters that the testing authority pre-determine the level of standardisation they will apply and that this year, they've been overly-generous. That's not how it works. It's not "fiddling", "scientific junk" or "pseudo-science" just because it's not understood.

People enter this process of their own volition, and age standardisation is a known aspect of it. If you don't think age standardisation is appropriate or fair, lobby to have it removed from the testing in future years. You don't get to choose how much adjustment is required. The cohort data determines that and your child is part of that cohort. Complaining about the level of adjustment when your own children have contributed to the cohort data is strange.

As I said clearly, I have no narrow interest or axe to grind (and I am not affected by the standardisation at all).

Yes, everybody has entered into system or testing process by own volition knowing that age standardisation would apply. But did CSSE inform beforehand that the effect of age standardisation would be so huge? Why is the effect so pronounced vis-a-vis other schools/boroughs/counties where impact is very marginal/minimal? Are schools which don't implement age standardisation being unscientific luddites?

As it is currently being implemented, CSSE's age standardisation is not a tie-breaker, it is a deal-breaker (dream-breaker) for many who will be affected adversely. The quantum of age-adjustment just doesn't seem right. It is one thing to apply statistical analysis on cohorts blindly and another to do it sensibly.

Why should standardisation be limited to age only? Why not for gender (in general boys outscore girls in entrance tests, although it is other way round in GCSEs etc.)? Why not for those who don't attend tuition centre (after all, the schools and consortium admissions constantly rail against over-tutored kids)?

One person just commented how being born a year early gives the early-term borns extra year to memorise vocabulary! So age-standardisation must perforce be applied to level it up. Who can argue against such well-crafted, profound, irrefutable argument?

To my mind (and at the risk of repeating myself), age should be a factor only to break tie for the last offer. Otherwise, as many have rightly pointed, for long will there be "grace marks" applied for late-borns - for GCSEs, A-level, university places, jobs?

[Wontsleeptonight]

We seem to be arguing over something we can't change. What we should focus on is that the methost used has inflated the standardised scores so people are given false hope. This year there are more than 50 % acheiving over 300 which will bump up all the threshold scores for entry.

[anotherdad]

htm, the answers to all your points are in the explanation of the process and the links to more detailed explanations and examples.

They can't inform beforehand because the level of standardisation isn't known before the test.

The effect may or may not be larger than at other schools, but that's a function of the calculation for that cohort. Every cohort is different. Next year, CSSE's adjustments might be much smaller than those of other schools/boroughs/counties, it will depend on the results of the cohort.

Schools which don't implement age-standardisation must be happy with a skewed intake. That's their business.

The adjustment might not "seem right" but have you got all the data that was used to calculate it? How can you judge it when you don't know the basis on which it was calculated? What benchmark are you comparing it to?

It's illegal to apply standardising for gender, which is, guess what? Explained in the guidance.

Describing them as "grace marks" is just displaying a misunderstanding of the whole process.

I think I'll give up here. If people don't want to read the guidance on the subject to try and understand it, there's not much more I can say that will convince you. I have no axe to grind either. My child is long out of the school system now and I don't even live in Essex. All I'm trying to do is to help people understand what's going on in the face of terms like unfair, pseudo-science, fiddling, grace marks, etc which just betray a lack of understanding the process. I have no issue with standardisation being not used or used, but where it is used, it's more than the stab in the dark that people seem to think it is. Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it inherently rubbish.

[kenyancowgirl]

+1

[Greg LeMond]

Informed comments help the process. Don’t give up. Thanks.

[anotherdad]

Cheers Greg, but it's difficult to find different words to say the same thing in response to the same points. The basics of age standardisation are all laid out in a guide on this site and are reasonably straightforward to understand if people actually read them. The more complex principles behind them are linked to from the same guide and I'll concede they are tricky to grasp unless you're familiar with some statistical maths so aren't easy reading. That doesn't make them pseudo science.

As a sort of analogy, here's a piece of probability that I used to give to students:

In a group or room of just 23 people there’s a 50:50 chance of two people having the same birthday.

Now their first reaction is disbelief, it doesn't "seem right", it seems "unfair". But it is right, the probability works. In fact, in a room of just 75 people there’s a 99.9% chance of two people matching. It's not a question of "agreeing to disagree", it's simply true.

[RedDevil66]

Agreed! GCSE's / A Levels / Degree won't be differentiated for the younger children so why on this test? If they are all in the same school year it should be a level playing field. Is there standardisation for those in private vs state education? I think not.

I feel you are not taking into account the age of the applicants. Once a certain age is reached then surely then it begins to significantly even out and is no longer significant. Once you're an adult,of course the month in which you were born is never going to be significant- why should it? However, we are dealing with 10/11 year olds where mental and physical development is signficant.

I'm not saying it's a perfect system but using the example of what happens in young adults and adults in general doesn't apply here.

[FTP12]

Age is one of many factors that should be considered. State vs private education is another. My DD's school had no focus on the 11 plus whatsoever but I am pretty confident in my assumption that many of the private schools would have been hothousing for months if not years. Should this not be taken into consideration? All that is needed is a level playing field so taking into account only age is not fair in my opinion. Access and equal chances should be given to all.