To what extent does degree difficulty vary between universities?

Firstly, Further Education != Higher Education. Two completely different things.

"Universities are responsible for the standards of qualifications they award. However, every UUK university uses a common set of tools known as the QAA Academic Infrastructure to underpin their work. This sets out threshold standards for HE qualifications, including by subject at honours level.

In addition, all UUK universities use external examiners to ensure outcomes are on a consistent and comparable basis.

Firstly, Further Education != Higher Education. Two completely different things.


Here is a quote from UUK about HE:

"Universities are responsible for the standards of qualifications they award. However, every UUK university uses a common set of tools known as the QAA Academic Infrastructure to underpin their work. This sets out threshold standards for HE qualifications, including by subject at honours level.

In addition, all UUK universities use external examiners to ensure outcomes are on a consistent and comparable basis. External Examiners are drawn from other institutions, or from areas of relevant professional practice. They report to the Vice-Chancellor of the university on whether the standards set are appropriate. The aim is to ensure that the threshold standards of student performance are comparable with those of students following similar courses in other UK universities "


It seems pretty clear in what it says.


I'm not bothering replying to anyone saying "you're just wrong". If you have actual evidence that the external examination system is ineffective in ensuring equivalent standards of honours classification across the UK, then please bring it forward; otherwise stop wasting our time.

On the contrary what you have offered is not an argument at all but an opinion backed up by nothing. When i said 'this' it wasn't an opinion per se but me showing support for an argument that was derived from fact. Please take your asinine comments elsewhere.

This isn't what external examiners are used for, in fact. They do not re-mark papers or check the consistency of scores between institutions at all. Each institution defines the role it wants an external examiner to play, and can ignore anything he/she reports. Everthing is far looser than you think it is, and certainly doesn't ensure comparability. Read this: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/institutionalaudit/outcomes/series2/externalexaminers.asp

Yes, actually it was:

"Despite being granted university status only forty years ago, the University of Bath can trace its roots to a technical school established in Bristol 100 years earlier, the Bristol Trade School of 1856. In 1885 the school became part of the Society of Merchant Venturers and was renamed the Merchant Venturers' Technical College, an institution founded as a school in 1595. Meanwhile, in the neighbouring city of Bath, a pharmaceutical school, the Bath School of Pharmacy, was founded in 1907. This became part of the Technical College in 1929.

In 1949, the college came under the control of the Bristol Education Authority and was renamed the Bristol College of Technology, which was subsequently changed again, in 1960, to the Bristol College of Science and Technology when it became one of ten technical colleges under the umbrella of the Ministry of Education. The college was mainly housed in the former Muller's Orphanage at Ashley Down, Bristol, which still houses part of the City of Bristol College whilst the remainder has been converted into residential housing.

In 1963, the government completed an inquiry into the state of higher education in the United Kingdom. This was known as the Robbins Committee report. It was this report that paved the way for the college (along with a number of other institutions) to assume university status."

We were asked to compare the syllabuses and exam papers of Cambridge, Durham and Manchester, to see how they taught certain topics, and the standards they required of the students - because Bath had decided to add some different topics to their syllabus that they previously hadn't offered, so they need a way to judge how hard to make it so that they wouldn't get strung up by the QAA for it being too easy. It was really interesting stuff.

The way some people on here talk, you would think that Cambridge would be a different world - it wasn't, there was nothing to say that one syllabus and set of exams was harder or more rigorous than any other.

Haha. I'm sure I've heard a quote from an Oxbridge tutor of "They are called 'vacations' because you vacate your rooms, not because you stop work". (Our maths tutor said we could only have Christmas day off work in the christmas holidays , then again he did expect 98% from all of us for some reason )

I must admit that in my intellectual inferiority I struggle to determine the difference between me showing I disagree being "an opinion being backed by nothing" whilst yours wasn't "an opinion per se"

Added to which it wasn't an argument derived by fact though was it? It was someone's opinion presented as a fact.

The simple fact (according to your definition of fact) is that 2:1s aren't the same from different universities. In fact the two chancellors went to extreme lengths to avoid ever saying that 2:1s from different universities are the same despite being pressed heavily on this issue.

You've got a fairly clear example here: Oxford takes significantly brighter students than Brookes' students on average (this should really not be contentious). It invests far more time and money in them (clear from the discussion).

Yet 66% of Brookes' students achieve 2:1 or better whilst 1 in 10 Oxford students don't achieve a 2:1 - are you seriously arguing that of the highest achieving students in the country with twice as much support - 66% of Brooke's students are of a noticeably higher standard after a 3 year course whereby they have had half the investment that the Oxford students have?

If so then we really should be looking at closing down Oxford if Brookes can do such a good job on half the resources - unless of course the degree aren't equal - that does seem the most logical result doesn't it?

Well all argument is opinion to an extent but what i meant by opinion was simply that it wasnt backed by argument. In me saying 'this' i was expressing my support for a given argument. In you saying 'not this' you were simply saying this is wrong, but giving no argument on which to support the assertion.

It was an argument derived from facts, he derived the outcome by lookin at third party data (the data being the facts not the statement) that i felt backed up the argument. Whether the statement was presented as fact is neither here nor there, i appreciate that no one on this board is qualified to give a conclusive answer to this, but that is no reason not to debate it in an intelligent way. Something you failed at in your previous post. In future I'll try to keep my discourse at your level of "this" as opposed to the idiocy of "not this" then- point well noted

The two chancellors did avoid answering the question, i feel that was more to do with the fact that neither felt they had knowledge enough to judge. and yet you're able to instantly declare that the two [edit: changed of to are as it's a typo] are the same - bloomin' heck! - why aren't you vice chancellor of Oxford?! Might it be a touch more likely that they realise it's an extremely politically sensitive issue rather than a lack of knowledge?

Now i do appreciate in some more technical subjects some universities do move faster in a more technical direction. In doing so this does not mean other universities do less, but they do more of other stuff that make comparison of the modules, degrees and results difficult to assess...but generally speaking we can regard classifications equal. No we really can't. Thanks for playing though!

In terms of the case in point, i agree Oxford takes far more bright students. In regards to money invested i havnt seen figures, in terms of time invested i don't think they get more either. Have you read the original debate? Please take the time to do so. It states that twice the amount is spent roughly per Oxford student than Oxford Brookes student

You seem to have confused the figures within your argument. Its less then 0.9 out of 10 students at oxford attain less then 6.6 out of ten students at brookes and so approximately 66% of Brookes students achieve better than 1 out of 10 Oxford student- just because you can't follow the figures doesn't mean I've confused them (bar using 1 out of 10 instead of 0.9 out of ten for simplicity). This seems perfectly reasonable to me, as just because some one is intelligent enough to hit entry requirements does not mean they put the effort in to attain whilst at university. So essentially what the stats say is that 9.1 out of ten people at oxford attain better then 3.4 out of ten people at brooks, where as only 6.6 out of ten at Brookes attain better then 0.9 out of ten people at Oxford. Seems reasonable.It really isn't. Think about the students at your school that went to Oxford. Now think about the ones that went to Brookes - do you seriously believe that the majority of those students who went to Brookes will be better than approximately 1 out of 10 of those who went to Oxford despite higher investment and better teaching?

But i don't see how he is wrong... the threshold standards implies to me the lowest possible standard that a degree must be.

You haven't brought about any evidence though?

And comparing oxford brooks 66% to oxford 91% doesn't count as evidence. What that says is that 75% of the oxford brooks population deserves to get into oxford proper and would get the same degree band as their counterparts - (the 66% who got the high grades and the 9% from oxford who didn't). While some, no doubt would, others I fear wouldn't.

Since you have also said that oxbridge students have significantly higher resources thrown at them, which is one of the major reasons that they get better marks, this would surely suggest that the average oxford brooks student is similar to the average oxford student.

.

Yet 66% of Brookes' students achieve 2:1 or better whilst 1 in 10 Oxford students don't achieve a 2:1 - are you seriously arguing that of the highest achieving students in the country with twice as much support - 66% of Brooke's students are of a noticeably higher standard after a 3 year course whereby they have had half the investment that the Oxford students have?

There are a number of reasons why two thirds of students at Oxford Brookes are able to achieve a 1st or 2:1, despite it not being a particularly selective university - but a lower standard of work required to achieve a certain classification in a given subject is not one of them.

Your faith in the equivalence of courses is touching but misplaced. The UK hasn't had a mechanism capable of achieving this since the CNAA was abolished when the polytechics were incorprated as self-managing universities in 1992.

By "theshold standards", I don't think they mean "the minimum standard" - which is how yourself and goodbloke appear to be interpreting it -they mean "the standard of the thresholds" - ie the standard of work at which a 2:2 becomes and 2:1 or a 2:1 becomes a 1st.





I am surprised by the number of people on this thread who are reading a lot more into the statistics than is really there to be read.

All the entry standards tell you is how people did at school - which is a very poor guide to underlying intelligence - which itself is a poor guide to predicting who will do well at university.

Achieving high grades at school and achieving high marks at university are two completely different things. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the two don't correspond perfectly. Why should we be surprised that 8% of students at Oxford, despite meeting the entry criteria, don't mange to achieve a 2:1? There are countless possible reasons why something could have gone wrong. The very fact that this figure is so remarkably low just demonstrates how good the teaching really is.

There are a number of reasons why two thirds of students at Oxford Brookes are able to achieve a 1st or 2:1, despite it not being a particularly selective university - but a lower standard of work required to achieve a certain classification in a given subject is not one of them.

If you wish to argue that the range of courses offered at Brookes tend to be less academic than those offered at Oxford, then I wouldn't disagree with you.

The problem is right there in your argument - "Why should we be surprised that 8% of students at Oxford, despite meeting the entry criteria, don't mange to achieve a 2:1?" - well it really depends on what you define a 2:1 as.

If it's an Oxford 2:1 then I'm not surprised in the least. If it's a 2:1 at an institute like Oxford Brookes then I would be absolutely shocked.

Just think about what you're arguing for a second - 1 in 10 of the best students in the country at 18 with twice as much investment and superb facilities cannot do better than a third of the less able students with half the investment. That's an absolute travesty! Please close the place down!

If you wish to go on believing it then please do so. Suffice to say those who actually employ individuals from universities and those who decide on post-graduate education realise there is a significant difference as does anyone else with any sense.

A combination of the quotes presented in post 2, the unambiguous statement from UUK, the evidence from the published league tables, my own experience in assisting at the University of Bath, discussions with lecturers and academics from a variety of universities, and the complete lack of any evidence to the contrary other than a handful of rather dubious anecdotes would render me an extremely irrational man if I were to conclude otherwise.

I definitely agree that if you are at oxford you are far more likely to be an academically challenging course than at oxford brookes. But now taking this assumption, your use of that statistic becomes complete nonsense, because not only are we no longer even comparing similar courses. There are SO many flaws in the parallels that you have tried to draw there and I think this is why everyone is picking up on them.

Perhaps the key to the perceived differences in difficulty level is therefore that the courses offered at ex-polys (for example) are different, despite the generic label of say 'history' they will have a different course code and different proper name etc. I don't believe for a second that even the average academic course at oxford brookes is the same standard as the average oxford course. (soory ob students!)

I disagree with the argument that A levels are not a good predictor. I think that the % of CCC students that might perform well at a given course would be much lower than the same for AAA students. They aren't a perfect predictor, but if you can perform well in some exams, you'r likely to be alright in others. I imagine UMS marks might be a better predictor, and perhpas the new A* will bring out more of the top students and make the correlation clearer. But still, there must be a good correlation.

EDIT - what eternal dreams says above is pretty sensible tbf! How can oxbridge/other top unis take the top level of students with the using best (as in we currently have nothing better) possible predictors of university available (A levels, own exams, coursework, interviews), throw masses of resources at them, and show relatively small margins above some of the other unis.

Describing someone who gets into Oxbridge as "the best students in the country" is like describing the England U17s as "the best footballers in the country".

How many england U17 internationals go onto become full internationals? According to your logic, it is simply inconceivable that any of them could fail to do so.

Do you actually know what you're talking about? Do you work in a blue chip company that recruits only the top graduates? Have you done a PhD working alongside both Oxbridge and non-Oxbridge graduates? Or are you simply relating something a mate of a mate once told you?