Neil Simon Stringer

The UK Government’s Resilience Framework aims to ensure the country’s prosperity. A framework approach recognises that key risks and their effects vary by sector; however, any framework requires translation when applied in different contexts, with consideration of the issues in a sector-specific, case-based manner. Using publicly available documents, input from an expert advisory group, and elite interviews with 21 assessment insiders, we investigated the resilience of England’s qualifications system. The 2020 exams crisis created by the pandemic is one focus, but we explored resilience more broadly. To define resilience, we drew upon definitions in other complex, distributed systems (food, health care, and power [electrical] supply). Our interview data showed consensus on neither the definition of resilience nor whether the system is resilient. Proposed countermeasures for perceived lack of resilience (teacher assessment, modular examinations, digitalisation) brought risks along with potential benefits. Our data showed that resilience must be defined in relation to specified aims. Many threats to resilience were identified, including political pressure—a feature of the 2020 qualification policies. We conclude that fundamentally redesigning the system for resilience to unlikely catastrophic events would be costly and require solutions that may introduce their own problems. The cause of the recent crisis is best attributed to poor policy—lacking recognition of society’s expectations—rather than system fragility. Where policy values and objectives shift over time, those responsible for the system can find themselves responding to changing or conflicting priorities. We propose that a context-specific definition of resilience is required for its effective management.

This study investigates the effects of socioeconomic status and schooling on the academic attainment of a cohort of students at a single medical school (N = 240). Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to explore how students’ summative assessment scores over 4 years of medical school were affected by: attainment in secondary school examinations (GCSEs and A-levels); the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) rank associated with students’ home postcodes; the performance of students’ A-level institutions, measured as the percentage of A-level students achieving 3 A-levels at AAB or higher in two or more facilitating subjects. The effects were consistent across time; the final linear regression model used students’ cumulative scores (the basis of the medical school’s UK Foundation Programme submission) as the dependent variable. The final model fit was quite poor (R² = .184, n = 178). IDACI Rank was non-significant and excluded from the final model. Both GCSE (.340, p < .001) and A-level (.204, p < .005) scores were associated with increasing Cumulative Score; School Performance was associated with decreasing Cumulative Score (−.159, p < .05). This study confirmed the predictive validity of prior academic attainment and found the same inverse relationship between schooling and medical course performance as previous studies. The study found no evidence that socioeconomic background affects course performance; however, students admitted to medicine from poorly performing schools achieve higher academic attainment throughout the course than students admitted from better-performing schools with the same grades. Schooling could be taken into account for admissions purposes.

General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and General Certificate of Education (GCE) grading standards are determined by Awarding Bodies using procedures that adhere to the Code of Practice published by the regulator, Ofqual. Grade boundary marks (cut scores) are set using subject experts’ (senior examiners) judgement of the quality of candidates’ work, informed by statistics about the candidature and the mark distribution of the examination. This model has been called weak criterion-referencing: the requirement of (strong) criterion-referencing for evidence of specific knowledge, skills and understanding is relaxed to allow for variations in examination difficulty, requiring maintenance of only the general quality of examination performance. This paper considers the major conceptual flaw in this model – the fact that the examiners making the judgements have insufficient information to estimate quantitatively the relative difficulty of two successive years’ examinations – as well as evidence demonstrating that experienced examiners are unable to distinguish between candidates’ work within a small range of marks, as is required to set grade boundaries. Furthermore, examiners appear biased toward giving candidates the benefit of doubt when deciding grade boundary marks. Combined with their imprecision, this is a recipe for ‘grade inflation’ – the lowering of the quality of work required for a particular grade – of which the steadily increasing national GCSE and GCE results, and the consequent need to introduce grade A^∗s, could be a symptom. It is proposed that a form of cohort-referencing that is sensitive to changes in examination entry patterns be introduced. The proposed system would shift the weight of evidence toward statistics, using qualitative judgements as part of a check on the veracity of the statistics, at the same time extinguishing the annual debate as to whether increasing examination outcomes are an indicator of improvement in education or a decline in examination ‘standards’, and safeguard against the need to introduce further higher grades in the future.

Advocates of using a US‐style SAT for university selection claim that it is fairer to applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds than achievement tests because it assesses potential, not achievement, and that it allows finer discrimination between top applicants than GCEs. The pros and cons of aptitude tests in principle are discussed, focusing on school‐proofness claims, concluding that it is invalid to assess suitability for university using measures purportedly immune to study, and unfair to allocate opportunities according to qualities acquired by chance. Considering empirical findings, aptitude tests’ claims to school‐proofness and their power to predict academic achievement – relative to achievement tests – are found wanting. Methods of evaluating pupils’ achievement within an educational context are discussed, including a national system for ranking university applicants that accounts for absolute achievement and educational context. Pupils’ ranks would form the basis of universities’ first sifts, allowing applicants from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds to compete fairly for university places.

Laboratory based research has shown that the use of stereoscopic displays and observer-produced motion parallax in telepresence systems can each improve operators' performance beyond that achieved using conventional 2-D displays. In applied contexts such as minimal access surgery (MAS) tasks are more complex and a range of sources of depth information is available. We therefore decided to examine the benefits of stereoscopic displays and observer-produced motion parallax under more realistic conditions. The 'pick and place' task was taken from surgical performance studies. It involved picking up small irregular spheres from one place and dropping them through apertures in another. The task was performed under seven different viewing conditions: (1) baseline (monocular), (2) biocular, (3) stereoscopic, (4) free motion parallax, (5) instructed motion parallax, (6) augmented motion parallax and (7) stereo and motion parallax. Each subject did a baseline condition (monocular viewing) followed by one of the seven experimental conditions, followed by a final block of the baseline condition (n = 7 conditions x 10 subjects). Only stereoscopic viewing (conditions 3 and 7) leads to better performance. The provision of motion parallax adds nothing to performance. It may even reduce the effectiveness of stereoscopic viewing. The evidence converges on the fact that binocular viewing confers a considerable performance advantage, while providing motion parallax information, to novice operators at least, is not beneficial.

Binocular telepresence systems afford the opportunity of increasing the inter-camera distance (ICD) beyond the normal interocular distance (IOD) which magnifies the magnitude of the disparity information. This improves performance in nulling and matching tasks. Here we examine whether telepresent observers can learn to use enhanced disparities to accurately perform tasks requiring the recovery of Euclidean geometry (a shape task). The design comprised three phases: pre-adaptation (ICD equals 6.5 cm), adaptation (ICD equals 3.25 or 13 cm) and post-adaptation (ICD equals 6.5 cm). Telepresent observers were required to adjust the magnitude of a depth interval (specified by binocular disparity) so that it matched a specified 2D interval specified by two lights (set between 5 and 15 cm) in an otherwise blacked-out scene. In the adaptation phase, the ICD/IOD ratio was changed to 0.5 or 2 and observers adjusted the depth interval repeatedly until a performance criterion was reached. Two forms of feedback were given in the adaptation phase: direct, where another light was shown at the correct disparity; and symbolic, where a signed number indicated the magnitude and direction of the error. Observers were clearly affected by ICD/IOD changes but learned the new ratio rapidly under both feedback conditions.

The experiments reported here were designed to address two aims. Th first was to determine the sufficiency of head- generated motion parallax, when present in isolation, for the control of natural prehensile movements. The second was to assess the consequences of providing enhanced parallax information for prehension. Enhanced parallax was created by changing the spatial extend of the movement of a camera relative to the extend of the teleoperator's head movements. The gain ranged from 0.5 to 4. The scene was viewed for 2 secs before reaches were made in open-loop conditions. Results showed clearly that information from motion parallax is sufficient to support reliable and accurate motor movements. The enhanced information, led to predictable distortions in perceived size and distance and corresponding alterations in the transport and grip components. The results suggest that the provision of parallax information is beneficial for tasks requiring the recovery of metric depth information. However, if enhanced parallax is used, which facilitates performance in a range of perceptual tasks, re-calibration of the relative motion information is necessary to prevent size/distance distortions.

We report three experiments that explore the effect of enhanced binocular information on a range of perceptual judgements made under telepresence. Enhanced disparity is potentially useful as it would extend the range over which disparities are detectable, but it is not known whether, or for what tasks, we can use the enhanced information. Subjects positioned a 'mobile' within a scene viewed, via remote cameras, on a monitor. The tasks differed in the minimum geometry required to perform them, and we compared performance under monocular, normal binocular, and enhanced binocular conditions. Enhanced disparity improved performance on a 'nulling' task ; had no effect on a distance matching task; or on a shape task. We conclude that enhanced disparity is potentially useful for limited specialist tasks, but is unlikely to be useful in general. It remains possible that with training its usefulness could be extended.

The control of inter-camera distance (ICD) can be used to change the range of binocular disparities available from a visual scene viewed remotely. Binocular disparity is considered pre-eminent in the control of reaching behavior. One reason for this is that once suitably scaled it can specify metrical depth relationships within a scene. Such information is necessary in order to plan the transport and grasped phase of a reaching movement. However whether an observer can take advantage of enhanced disparities to control reaching is unknown. Here we examine the effects of manipulating ICD on reaching movements with ICDs ranging from 6.5cm to 26cm. Typically sized, real world objects were placed in a scene and reaching performance was assessed. An experimental sequence consisted of three blocks. The first and last block used a normal ICD/IOD of 6.5cm whereas the middle block used an increased ICD. Larger than normal ICD were found to disrupt reaching performance, with slower peak velocities and smaller grip apertures being observed. This was more pronounced for unfamiliar objects. Little evidence for learning was found.