Provincial Examinations

Exam Security

Provincial Exam Security Changes Effective 2004/05 School Year

Background

There is a strong culture of examination security in British Columbia. Students, parents, teachers, principals and the public all understand that exams must stay unopened until the time the exams are written. Increasingly, students, parents, teachers, principals and the public want to know how student performance in one year compares with student performance in another year. It is important to have reliable trend information in order to make such comparisons and to learn how to improve. The best way to get comparable exam information is to use some exam questions more than once. These are called "anchor" or "change" questions. Accurate information about change over time cannot be gained if the exam questions have entered the public domain or have been used by students for practice.

There is also increasing demand for examination sessions to be offered more frequently, to match alternative timetables and the pace of individual student learning. Using exam questions more than once will allow more flexibility in the times when students can write exams.

What does this mean?

For the above reasons, Grade 10, 11 and 12 exams are now "secure". This means that use and exposure of exam questions will be limited after exams are administered. This means that teachers may not retain, copy or use "secure" exam questions in class. This means that entire exams will not be posted to the exam web site shortly after each administration. However, this does not mean that all access to exam questions will be restricted. For example:

  • principals will be allowed to retain a resource set, following each administration session, if desired;
  • teachers who are marking open response portions may use exam materials in order to mark and may view exam materials in advance in order to prepare to mark;
  • teachers may review an exam in their subject area.
  • students who wish to review exam questions prior to making rewrite or reread decisions will make arrangements with their principals to view the secure exam booklets that are contained in the Principal's Secure Resource Set.

Clearly, students and teachers want access to examination questions in order to prepare for upcoming exam sessions. Sample exams and questions will continue to be posted on the exam web site at http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/search/. Each year, a complete exam will be posted as well; questions in this exam will not be used after the public posting. The ministry is also developing an on-line item bank that will give teachers secure access to additional exam questions that could be used as part of classroom assessment. In other words, there will be a great deal of exam material for student and teacher use.

During all provincial examination sessions, principals will be required to:

  • ensure that no copies of the examination are made other than those needed to meet the requirements of the examination administration;
  • maintain the security of the principal's secure resource set before, during and after the administration of each examination session;
  • establish a system for secure access prior to the administration by teachers who need to prepare for marking open response sections and secure access by teachers who wish to review the tests after the administration;
  • ensure that no examination materials be used for instruction or testing unless they have been released by the ministry for those purposes;
  • sign a statement indicating adherence to the above conditions. (This statement is included in the Examination Security Control Sheet that accompanies the exam materials that are sent to schools prior to the exam session); and
  • return ALL examination materials (i.e., booklets, response forms, etc.) to the ministry, excluding the principal's secure resource set which is to be retained at the school and kept secure by the principal.