During academic session 2009/10 it became apparent that the SQA was producing invalid and unreliable assessment questions in Higher Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies (RMPS). Additionally, the SQA were producing many marking instructions to accompany those assessment questions which were wrong, inappropriate or irrelevant to the questions asked. These significant errors are present in the Specimen Question Paper (SQP), the 36 internal assessments and the final external assessment papers for all academic sessions from 2009/10 onwards.
The SQA is responsible for the provision of appropriate assessments for each subject and Course in national examinations. To this end, they produce a document, “The Arrangements,” for each Course. This document specifies all aspects of the teaching and assessment of each Course, which includes both the mandatory content of each unit within a Course and the assessment criteria which govern the knowledge and skills on which candidates should be assessed. It is these two aspects which should be reflected and complied with in all assessments for any Course provided by the SQA.
An analysis of these Higher RMPS examination questions and marking instructions indicated that, in total, there appeared to be 40 questions which did not accurately reflect the mandatory content for the various units of the Course and 156 questions which did not comply with the assessment criteria as set out in the assessment specification in the Course Arrangements. Additionally, an analysis of the relevant marking instructions identified in excess of 1000 individual marking instruction points which were wrong, inappropriate or irrelevant to the questions asked.
Consequently, I produced a detailed 70-page analysis of these questions and issues which the Rector of my school officially submitted to the SQA in early July 2010.We asked the SQA to explain and justify why they regarded the questions and marking instructions to be valid and reliable and consistent with their own published Arrangements for this Course.
The initial response from the SQA denied outright that there were problems with these questions and they declined to provide us with direct answers to any of the questions we had asked.