Anonymous test taking (kind of)

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Anonymous test taking (kind of)

Post by Pastaman202 »

This is just an opinion, but I recall many times in which my friend who was in game on complaining about how the test graders are easily biased when grading one's game. I feel this could easily be applied into many other events in which there is a written portion of a test or essay is needed, although only slightly. I was thinking that as many competitions already use team numbers for competitors to write down on tests, the students would only write down that number and not their actual school name. Although this system can still be easily beaten by graders who just take the school number list, but it can help against some biased parents of kids from rival schools who aren't very trustworthy. Would this general idea of anonymously taking tests actually work on a nationals level?

Discussion is welcome below
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Re: Anonymous test taking (kind of)

Post by lumosityfan »

I was actually sort of thinking about this because as an event supervisor, while I do my best to be fair to every team, I don't want to feel like I'm being biased to one particular team (why I sometimes have to hide which team I'm grading for so that I don't let my rooting interests get in the way of grading). While that certainly might work on a local (and maybe even state), my biggest issue is mainly record-keeping and ensuring that the right scores go to the right teams. Especially at nationals, if one score gets messed up, the entire process gets backed up (as we've seen through awards delays) That being said, since each team is attached to one specific team number, I can't imagine it'd be that big of an issue since people would hopefully remember what team numbers match with which teams so that when the scores are transferred no errors are made.
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Re: Anonymous test taking (kind of)

Post by venules »

At the NC State Tournament, there was a trial event (Applied Anatomy & Physiology) where the supervisor gave each team random five-digit identifiers rather than their assigned team numbers. That way, the graders didn’t know who they were marking, but the supervisor knew what the final placements were. The event only had 20 or so teams if I remember correctly so I’m not sure how that would be implemented on a larger scale, but it could be plausible if the supervisor is meticulous in their record keeping.
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Re: Anonymous test taking (kind of)

Post by TheCrazyChemist »

venules wrote:At the NC State Tournament, there was a trial event (Applied Anatomy & Physiology) where the supervisor gave each team random five-digit identifiers rather than their assigned team numbers. That way, the graders didn’t know who they were marking, but the supervisor knew what the final placements were. The event only had 20 or so teams if I remember correctly so I’m not sure how that would be implemented on a larger scale, but it could be plausible if the supervisor is meticulous in their record keeping.
I think that's a very good idea, but it also requires meticulous checking of team numbers and stuff.
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Re: Anonymous test taking (kind of)

Post by sciolyperson1 »

Pastaman202 wrote:This is just an opinion, but I recall many times in which my friend who was in game on complaining about how the test graders are easily biased when grading one's game. I feel this could easily be applied into many other events in which there is a written portion of a test or essay is needed, although only slightly. I was thinking that as many competitions already use team numbers for competitors to write down on tests, the students would only write down that number and not their actual school name. Although this system can still be easily beaten by graders who just take the school number list, but it can help against some biased parents of kids from rival schools who aren't very trustworthy. Would this general idea of anonymously taking tests actually work on a nationals level?

Discussion is welcome below
I don't really think something like this is needed to be implemented.

At a nationals level, will a parent of lets say, X Middle School or Y High School's parent run or grade an event? No - only experienced test writers would write or grade the tests.

As for invitationals, last year our coaches (who ran the event) told other volunteers or graders to grade our team's tests. At Garnet, in which they ran ELG, a volunteer timed builderguy's plane - rather than having our coach time our own plane, like she did for all other teams.

However, I'm assuming most teams will not do this. If you look at invitational results, a school usually not win the event they supervise, consistently - let alone having their A and B team win first and second (which, looking through invitational results, happens more often than you'd expect).
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Re: Anonymous test taking (kind of)

Post by Pastaman202 »

sciolyperson1 wrote:
Pastaman202 wrote:This is just an opinion, but I recall many times in which my friend who was in game on complaining about how the test graders are easily biased when grading one's game. I feel this could easily be applied into many other events in which there is a written portion of a test or essay is needed, although only slightly. I was thinking that as many competitions already use team numbers for competitors to write down on tests, the students would only write down that number and not their actual school name. Although this system can still be easily beaten by graders who just take the school number list, but it can help against some biased parents of kids from rival schools who aren't very trustworthy. Would this general idea of anonymously taking tests actually work on a nationals level?

Discussion is welcome below
I don't really think something like this is needed to be implemented.

At a nationals level, will a parent of lets say, X Middle School or Y High School's parent run or grade an event? No - only experienced test writers would write or grade the tests.

As for invitationals, last year our coaches (who ran the event) told other volunteers or graders to grade our team's tests. At Garnet, in which they ran ELG, a volunteer timed builderguy's plane - rather than having our coach time our own plane, like she did for all other teams.

However, I'm assuming most teams will not do this. If you look at invitational results, a school usually not win the event they supervise, consistently - let alone having their A and B team win first and second (which, looking through invitational results, happens more often than you'd expect).
Sorry for the miscommunication on my part. I meant the test graders as the biased people, not the event supervisors themselves. Most test supervisors, are in my opinion, pretty unbiased, however many competitions most use test graders in the form of either coach or parent volunteers as it would take far too long for an individual event supervisor to grade every test, especially if there were written or essay questions.
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Re: Anonymous test taking (kind of)

Post by Anomaly »

I think that hiding one’s school name is really important when grading, or if this can't be done then a checking system to be done. My mom has supervised and graded on numerous occasions, and I remember one time she told me of someone from a rival school that had checked our team's test and marked objective questions wrong when they key clearly stated the right answer, which was written on the paper. When my mom had another grader go back and recheck the test then the score came out about 15 points higher than the original grader had put it. Because of this, I think that graders should not be able to know which team's test they're grading. Whether that means to only use team numbers and not give them access to team numbers, or using an alternate method like the pin method described above, graders should not be able to input their bias into ANY part of the grading and scoring at a competition.

If the hiding school thing can't be done, cross-checking I feel is the most appropriate option otherwise. Right now I'm thinking back to when I was randomly recruited by one of the coaches from my old middle school team to rapidly grade Fossils at Garnet Valley right before awards. There were four of us grading, three from one school, and one from a rival school of ours. Because of this, the rival school's grader had graded the other party's test, and vice versa. Afterwards, however, just to make sure that the score was valid, graders from both sides cross-checked the paper with another grader/supervisor to make sure it was all fairly marked. Similarly, at the end, all of the top 10 teams' tests were vetted by all four of us once again to make sure credit was given where it was due and to make sure no extra points were given to any teams. The other time that I assisted with grading at a competition (Parasitology @ Rustin 2019) we had another system in place, where me and another student volunteer were to actually grade the papers and the adult supervisor was to double check our work and add everything up, which worked really nicely in my opinion.

Through my experiences, I do feel that it is necessary to set up some system where either no bias is introduced or have a cross-check in which everyone's paper is graded as accurately and objectively as possible, because personal bias does some weird things to people and god knows what lengths people go to just to get a medal, even if it wasn't rightfully deserved.
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Re: Anonymous test taking (kind of)

Post by Name »

There's basically no argument against anonymous grading besides it might take slightly longer? So if possible why not? Even with awards already consistently delayed I wouldn't mind it being delayed a bit more for a more fair and accurate results. The pin idea could probably work smoothly with just entering a score next to the matching pin. Maybe that's something a scoring system could do.
sciolyperson1 wrote: However, I'm assuming most teams will not do this. If you look at invitational results, a school usually not win the event they supervise, consistently - let alone having their A and B team win first and second (which, looking through invitational results, happens more often than you'd expect).
Sure most teams won't completely rig the event. But nothing prevents a little bias from giving credit to their team for a boarderline response while deciding to not give credit on another boarderline response from another team.

Another thing about test grading- having people grade tests separately is probably a bad idea. Different people might have different opinions on what receives credit or partial credit. Rather people should generally be assigned sections of the test to grade.
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Re: Anonymous test taking (kind of)

Post by Unome »

I feel like people are really overestimating the amount of bias that goes on. It's really hard to be biased.
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Re: Anonymous test taking (kind of)

Post by TheCrazyChemist »

Unome wrote:I feel like people are really overestimating the amount of bias that goes on. It's really hard to be biased.
:?: Maybe, but I seriously doubt that most supervisors and judges will be completely unbiased unless they're someone like chalker or bernard(I think?) for example. Plus there's a lot of situations that definitely have happened where there was bias.
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