#maynoothuniversity — Public Fediverse posts

Invigilator Training?

I saw the above cartoon in the latest Private Eye and, with Repeat Examinations rapdily approaching I thought I’d share it here without permission.

Years ago, academic staff had to invigilate their own examinations. I had to do this in my first teaching job at Queen Mary and, later, at Nottingham, but more recently the job has generally been done by support staff rather than academics. I moved from Nottingham to Cardiff in 2007 and don’t think I ever had to invigilate examinations there, so I haven’t done it for almost twenty years. Nowadays we are just expected to be “on call” to deal with any queries that arise in the Exam Hall by phone.

The cartoon reminded me of one of the funniest April Fool jokes I can recall. I think it was when I was at Queen Mary, but it’s so long ago I can’t remember who was responsible. Anyway, whichever colleague it was sent an email to all academic staff passing on what appeared to be a message from the University Management stating that all staff would be required to attend a compulsory day-long invigilator training workshop, including a “role play” session (the mind boggles). This message managed to trigger a significant number of staff members who made use of the “ReplyAll” on their email to vent their outrage at such a waste of time. It was a good April Fool, because the idea of it was quite plausible. Most April Fools are far too obvious.

Anyway, I’m not sorry that I no longer have to perform the task of exam invigilation, as it was always one of my least favourite jobs, and not only because I don’t enjoy seeing people under stress. Initially I thought supervising an examination might allow me time to do something useful, but there always seemed to be some interruption, such as students wanting an extra answer book, or asking about some issue with the examination paper, or wanting to leave to go to the toilet, etc.

The most dramatic interruption I can remember was when a student who suffered from epilepsy had a seizure in the examination hall. Fortunately we invigilators had been briefed as to what to do in such an eventuality, namely to move the furniture so the student didn’t hurt themselves but otherwise not to intervene until they went to sleep – which usually happens after a minute or two. This was done about 15 minutes before the exam started, not in a day-long training session. We were told that such an episode was unlikely as the student was taking medicine to prevent them occurring. It was quite when it actually happened, but happily the student recovered quickly and was perfectly OK afterwards. Apparently he had been so busy preparing for the examination that day he had forgotten to take his medication in the morning.

Having given up on the idea of doing some other work during an examination, I used to take a few crosswords to do. These are good for passing the time because you can solve a few clues then pause to look around the hall. Other things I used to do included walking around counting the number of right-handed and left-handed students, for example, though I never did any detailed statistical analysis of the results.

The primary purpose of invigilation is to prevent cheating or other misbehaviour, and I only ever saw a few examples of that – most of them involving calculators with, e.g., graph-plotting facilities which are not allowed.

Anyway, I’m glad I no longer have to invigilate examinations, and that makes me all the more grateful for the people who do. Here in Maynooth there are three examinations per day during the Examination Period, with a brief period between to put out the next set of papers, which means a long day for those who do this job. Hats off to the staff of the Exams Office at Maynooth who carry out this thankless task three times a year!

The Leaving

Today is not only a significant date for me (in more ways than one), but it’s important for many young people in Ireland because the Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate examinations both start today, so the first thing I need to do is wish everyone starting their examinations the very best of luck!

Among other things, the results of the leaving certificate examinations are important for September’s university admissions. This year the grade inflation that occurred during the pandemic years will be reduced, though it is not yet clear how. Whatever happens is likely to have a big impact on student recruitment to third-level institutions.

In the system operating in England and Wales the standard qualification for entry is the GCE A-level. Most students take A-levels in three subjects, which gives them a relatively narrow focus although the range of subjects to choose from is rather large. In Ireland the standard qualification is the Leaving Certificate, which comprises a minimum of six subjects, with many students taking more than this. This gives students a broader range of knowledge at the sacrifice (perhaps) of a certain amount of depth; it has been decreed for entry into this system that an Irish Leaving Certificate subject counts as about 2/3 of an A-level subject for admissions purposes, so Irish students do the equivalent of at least four A-levels, and many do more than this. It’s also worth noting that all students have to take Mathematics at Leaving Certificate level.

One can choose to do Leaving Certificate subjects at Ordinary or Higher level and there’s quite a big difference between the two, especially in Mathematics (of which more below).

Overall I prefer the Leaving Certificate over the UK system of A-levels, as the former gives the students a broader range of subjects than the latter (as does the International Baccalaureate). I would have liked to have been allowed to take at least one arts subject past O-level, for example.

For University admissions points are awarded for each paper according to the marks obtained and then aggregated into a total CAO points, CAO being the Central Applications Office, the equivalent of the UK’s UCAS. This means, for example, that our main Science pathway at Maynooth allows students to study Physics without having done it at Leaving Certificate level. This obviously means that the first year has to be taught at a fairly elementary level, but it has the enormous benefit of allowing us to recruit students whose schools do not offer Physics.

There is however a big problem with Mathematics. It was decided some years ago that students would get 25 extra CAO points if they got a mark of at least 40% in Higher Mathematics. This has led to more students taking the subject, which is good, but there are signs that this may have led to a decline in standards. Our Theoretical Physics & Mathematics course requires a good result in Higher Mathematics for entry. Will changes to the marking of Higher Mathematics this year make it harder for students to make the grade? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Moreover, since the pandemic struck, students have been able to choose to answer questions from a limited range of sections on the mathematics examination papers. That means that students can get very high grades despite knowing nothing about a big chunk of the syllabus. That matters most for subjects that require students to have certain skills and knowledge for entry into University, such as Physics. I taught part of our first year Mathematical Physics course in Maynooth for about 5 years. It was noticeable how the fraction that were comfortable with basic differentiation and integration was falling. Will this trend accelerate? Again, we’ll just have to wait and see…

#Examinations #LeavingCertificate #LeavingCertificate2025 #mathematics #MaynoothUniversity #Physics