Standard error of the mark for an examination paper in electronic engineering

Experiments were undertaken to check an earlier estimate of the standard error of the mark for an examination paper. In each experiment, candidates were set two parallel papers. Each paper of the pair was prepared, and the scripts were marked, by the same team of examiners. Both papers were set under examination conditions. Eleven such experiments were conducted, involving 573 pairs of scripts. The objective parts of the papers were found to be more reliable, and, therefore, their results were excluded. For conventional papers the standard error, expressed in marks per cent, was found to be 8.5 marks for a 3h paper. This value is consistent with the earlier estimate, and suggests that the region of uncertainty for amark is about ±17.