The English Examining Boards: Their route from independence to government outsourcing agencies

25

(Power, Simon 2002) - similarly uses the attainment of five GCSE grades at C or
above as an indicator but none of the authors addresses the power of the bodies
providing these data.

As I said above, my search of the literature of educational sociology has meant that I
have had to reconsider my original structure, and construct what is essentially a
historical∕political account.

5 Additional sources

(a) The Boards’ Own Research: A hidden resource

Often with little recognition in the research community, the researchers employed by
the examining boards have long been producing a stream of papers investigating both
technical and social aspects of assessment. While some of their work has reached the
public forum through presentations at national and international conferences, much
has been restricted because of issues of confidentiality or commercial sensitivity.

In recent years Board trustees have relaxed to some extent their definition of
sensitivity and more of this work is becoming accessible. For example, a research
paper on A-Ievel standards produced confidentially for the Associated Examining
Board’s Research Committee was eventually published in Ted Wragg’s journal
Research Papers in Education as the article ‘Would the real gold standard please step
forward?’ (Baird, Cresswell 2000).

Two Boards have now produced summaries of such research. The first is Robert
Wood’s 1991 survey of research commissioned by the University of Cambridge Local
Examinations Syndicate (Wood 1991). A collection of abstracts from papers produced
by the Associated Examining Board’s Research and Statistics Group was published in

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