1. 1 How have standards changed in science at GCSE and A level over the last two decades? Robert Coe

2. 2 From the Daily Mail 27.11.08, based on the Royal Society of Chemistry’s report ‘The Five-Decade Challenge’

3. 3 Achievement at GCSE

4. 4 Comparing against Yellis test Plot grade against Yellis test score What is the average grade achieved by students of the same ability in different years? Yellis test is the same every year Correlations typically 0.6 – 0.7 GCSE grade Yellis test score Year 1 Year 2

5. 5 Overall GCSE grade, controlling for ability

6. 6 Science GCSE subjects: average ability

7. 7 Science GCSE subjects: high ability

8. 8 A-level grade, controlling for ability

9. 9 Sciences among the hardest A levels

10. 10 How ‘difficult’ is science GCSE/A-level? What does the syllabus require? How challenging are the questions/tasks? How does it feel to study it? What does the award of a particular grade correspond to – in terms of: –Some construct of ‘science learning’? –Specific competences? –Rank order of performance? –General ability?

11. 11 Laws of Declining Standards Students seldom learn what they are not taught –Many claims of decline in standards amount to observations that curriculum emphasis on a particular skill has declined Standards can decline and increase simultaneously –Different, but not explicitly clarified, definitions of standards make this possible