Scott, David (1992) Coursework and coursework assessment in the GCSE : a multi-case ethnography. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis is an empirical examination of coursework and
coursework assessment in the General Certificate of Secondary
Education (GCSE). The research was conducted using the
condensed fieldwork methods of multi-site case study, and fits
broadly within the ethnographic research tradition. Case
studies of the effects of coursework were made in six schools,
across three different counties and two metropolitan
districts. Examination texts, it is argued in the thesis, are
open to interpretation and re-interpretation at different
moments of use. Textual reading, moreover, is only part of the
policy process - construction, reading, meaning formulation,
meaning re-formulation and implementation. Texts allow
multiple readings, although some texts are more 'readerly'
than 'writerly'. These sources of meaning compete with
previous examination technologies and with other discursive
forms. They are practical documents and they are guided by
specific sets of ideological meaning. They seek to provide
apparatus for differentiating between candidates, and they
play their part in the creation of individual subjectivities.
A typology of teachers' attitudes towards GCSE coursework is
developed, and these are classified as conformist, adaptive,
oppositional, ritualistic, transformative and non-conformist.
Teachers' initial reading of GCSE texts or their initial
confrontation with the ideas behind the new examination draws
upon both those internalized rules which actors reproduce in their day to day working lives and those structural resources
which position actors within set frameworks. Those elements of
structure that are relevant to the matter in hand condition,
but do not determine, actors' responses. Initial textual
readings give way to subsequent interpretations and reinterpretations
of coursework processes, and all the various
readings are implicated in the implementation and reimplementation
of coursework strategies. This cycle of
activity at different moments and in different guises
influences actual practice. An account is given of the way
those structural and interactional influences impact upon
initial textual readings within one of the case-study schools.
Curriculum policy and curriculum practice within specific
sites is always the result of contestation. Within
institutions that devolve power and decision-making, outcomes
are never all the same; that contestation will have different
outcomes at different moments and at different places. Further
to this, five sets of polarized concepts - weak/strong
knowledge framing, formative/summative modes of assessment,
the production of reliable/unreliable assessment data,
limited/extended amounts and types of teacher interventions in
coursework processes and normal/irregular classroom
practices - are developed to help analyse issues such as the
influence of the GCSE on classroom practice, integration of
assessment and curriculum, pupil-teacher relations, pedagogy
and pupil motivation. Finally the threads of the argument that
has been developed in this thesis are drawn together to show how dislocated relationships between examination policy texts
and realisation have consequences for examination
comparability, educational disadvantage, and the production
and reproduction of educational knowledge in schools.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1603 Secondary Education. High schools
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	General Certificate of Secondary Education, Educational tests and measurements -- Great Britain, Independent study -- Great Britain, Grading and marking (Students) -- Great Britain
Official Date:	September 1992
Dates:	Date Event September 1992 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Sociology
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Burgess, Robert G.
Sponsors:	Midlands Examining Group
Extent:	vii, 333 p.
Language:	eng

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