215
(Orr 1983: 19)
Other assessment experts were aware of these motives. Gipps and Stobart suggest that
iiOne of the reasons for the interest of the DES and Secondary Examinations Council
(SEC) in the development of criterion-referencing within GCSE was concern over
comparability, or rather the lack of it, in GCSE grades from different examination
boards" (Gipps and Stobart 1990: 77). However Gipps apparently decided against
direct attribution for the move toward criterion referencing by taking refuge in the
passive voice: ii...and then in the mid-1980s it was decided that both GCSE and
National Curriculum assessment were to be criterion referenced (Gipps 1994: 81).
Gipps’ grasp of the technicalities of assessment is unfortunately all too rare in English
debates around the issues. Few outside a small circle of academic experts in
assessment and examination board employees realise the implications for the English
reliance on examination grades of Gipps’ observation that, iiAggregating detailed
assessments into a crude single grade compromises the information offered by the
assessment" (Gipps 1994: 85). She later states that ii...Sir Keith Joseph’s aim was to
get 80-90 percent of 16-year-olds up to the level previously deemed to be average. On
norm-referenced tests...by definition...this would be impossible" (Gipps 1994: 89).
Then, just as GCSE was being developed - but in the more peripheral area of
vocational qualifications - a fully criterion-referenced qualification was created.
NVQs and Competence-based Assessment
The National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) was established in 1986
with the daunting objective of turning the jungle of over 800 different vocational
qualifications into a coherent structure. Naturally attracted by what seemed a clear