An Appraisal of Subjective Marking in English A Case study of Twelve Grade Students

Abstract

In this thesis, an attempt has been made to determine the extent ofvariations in marking subjective answers by different examiners. Thestudy was carried out in two steps. In the first step, a test wasadministered to an examinee, and in the second step, the elicited answerswere distributed to the eighty different examiners for marking. In order to collect the relevant data,agrade twelvequestionpaper,it’sa marking scheme and aphotocopy ofreal answerbook of compulsoryEnglish of the examinationof year 2007needed. The informants wererequested to mark the answerbook strictly following the marking schemeon the basis of their perception. After collecting the scores given to each itembyeach informantwere recorded to analyze and interpret the data. The main findings of the study were:- Native speakers of English are more lenient than Non-native speakers of English.- Male examiners are found to be more lenient than female examiners.- Non-native female examiners are found to be less lenient than native female examiners.- Native male examiners are more lenient than non-native male examiners.- Australian, American, New Zealanders and British examiners are more lenient to less lenient respectively. The thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter one introduces the study in terms of general backgrounds, review of related literature, objectives, significance, fundamentals ofmarkingof study and the terms and their meanings. Chapter two is concerned with methodology applied to carry outthe research work. Chapter three presents the analysis and interpretation of data.While analyzing the data attempt has been made to compare the marksassigned by different groups of informants to find out which group ofinformants is relatively more or less lenient in the marking of a languagetest. The examiners include native and non-native speakers of English.Their scores are presented in the following comparative firms: - Native vs. non-native- Male vs. female- Native male vs. non-native male- Native female vs. non-native female- British vs. American vs. New Zealander vs. AustralianChapterfourdiscusses the findings of this study.On the basis of the findings, some recommendations are made for improvement ofgrade 12 examination system.