Avoiding ‘over-guidance’ in non-exam assessment units

Sarah Phillips, Business and Economics Subject Advisor

Whether you are new to our courses or new to non-exam assessment (NEA) style work, many of you will have just started or will be about to start the assessed work. I thought it might be helpful to share some information about guidance in NEA; specifically over-guidance, as we have had a few queries about this in recent weeks.

Why is over-guidance a problem?

Just like external exams, NEA assignments are summative assessments, so therefore all students’ work must be their own. NEA offers a great opportunity for learners to express their creativity and present their work and evidence for assessment in a unique and individual way. This evidence will vary from student to student depending on their interests and preferred style of working. Therefore, we must be careful to ensure that any tasks set for NEA units are not too prescriptive. 

Students should decide for themselves which resources to refer to, and what to include in their NEA, based on the knowledge and the skills they have been taught. Therefore, at the start of their assignment, teachers should provide them with the set assignment (including the Information for Learners section), a copy of the marking criteria and any pre-approved OCR templates, if relevant. 

Providing students with additional resources beyond these could be classed as ‘over-guidance’ or ‘over-direction’, giving them an unfair advantage. This could lead to the integrity of the qualification being compromised and would therefore be malpractice, as it would be a breach of the regulations of the assessment. 

When we see anything that suggests the teacher/assessor has led students to the answer, we become concerned because it suggests they have not worked independently to produce their assignment work.

What would be over-guidance, and classed as malpractice?

• Copying and pasting – not referencing sources properly. Students must identify all information sources, including information they have copied from teaching handouts and presentations for the unit, using quote marks and stating the text is from class handouts.
  
• Providing writing frames for students to structure their answers.
• Providing sentence starters for students for set tasks.
  
• Using practice assignments that replicate the task to be assessed, and providing detailed feedback on the work that the student then uses in their live set assignment.
  
• Using sample materials or previous set assignments as ‘practice’ or ‘mock’ projects.
  
• Using resources and teacher-created materials and workbooks that guide leaners through the task or very similar tasks, with examples of what to write. With this in mind, be careful of using resources produced and shared in online communities.

If you have a query or are not sure whether you should use a resource, contact us: we’ll be more than happy to help.

Useful pointers from moderators’ reports

• No extra guidance notes or templates can be given to students to explain or help structure the tasks. This would be malpractice. For example, if students use templates such as data collection sheets or Excel templates for financial/numerical calculations, they must be their own design. The assessor must not design data templates or collection sheets for students to use. 
• Feedback forms, if required, will be provided in the set assignment. Teachers/assessors must not create their own forms for these tasks. 
• When an assessment requires a witness statement or observation record, witnesses/observers need to be adults. If the requirement is an ‘independent’ witness, then this cannot be the teacher/assessor. This is because the comments recorded by the witness will be used to form the assessor’s decision for a mark. 
• The same tasks must not be used for practice as for summative assessment. 
• If an assignment requires students to participate in group work to produce evidence, the learner’s contribution must be clearly identified, and each student should generate their own individual evidence to show they have met the assessment criteria. 

Moderators’ reports provide useful comments and advice from the series. These are produced after every summer series and can be found on Teach Cambridge.

We do mock exams – why can’t we do mock or replica assignments?

You should prepare students through learning tasks and practical activities to help apply, analyse and evaluate information, in the same way that you might prepare them for examined assessment. Students need to be prepared for the set assignment but cannot do a replica ‘mock’ version beforehand. This is because in mock exams, questions are different from one series to another. Therefore, any feedback given is not a direct preparation for the live assessment. 

When the tasks are so similar in nature in NEA, giving students replica tasks and providing feedback on them would be directly relevant and applicable to live assessment in a way that a mock exam is not. This would give students an unfair advantage and would therefore be malpractice.

What about feedback?

Feedback can be provided but it must not provide specific advice and guidance that could be considered as coaching, as this would compromise the students’ ability to independently perform the tasks they are doing and would be classed as malpractice. 

Feedback can: 

• identify that the student has not met the command verb. For example, ‘This is only a description, not an evaluation’ 
• identify what areas of work could be improved, but not detail how to improve. Assessors can remind students about what they were taught but not how to apply it to improve the work. 

Feedback must not: 

• be so detailed that it provides a step-by-step guide on what to do 
• coach the student on how to achieve or complete the task 
• provide detail on where to find information/evidence. In other words, assessor feedback must not direct the student in what to do to improve their work. Students need to decide how to apply their learning.

If moderators cannot see differences in content between students’ work in the sample they are moderating, they will report suspected malpractice. An exception is when students have only used and referenced technical facts and definitions.

Useful links and resources

We organise “Ask the moderator” CPD events regularly for each qualification. You can find more information and book events on our professional development website. 

Our guide to referencing explains how and why to acknowledge sources correctly. 

We also produce a useful classroom poster.

Stay connected

If you have any questions you can email support@ocr.org.uk, call us on 01223 553998 or tweet us @OCR_BusEcon. You can also sign up to subject updates and receive information about resources and support.

About the author

Sarah joined the Business and Economics team in September 2022. She has over 20 years’ experience as a teacher of Business, Economics and Finance and in leadership roles including Head of Department, Head of Sixth Form and Assistant Principal. She has been an assessor for A Level Economics and holds a degree in Business Economics and the RSA Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA).