This new report from Ofqual concludes that the difficulty of the reformed functional skills maths qualifications appears consistent with legacy qualifications and is comparable across Awarding Organisations.
Ofqual’s rules require awarding organisations (AOs) to ensure comparability over time, and with other AOs’ qualifications. The study aimed to assess the difficulty of functional skills sample assessments between AOs and compared to legacy functional skills qualifications offered prior to the reforms.
Ofqual found that:
- The expected difficulty of items in legacy assessments and reformed sample assessments were very similar.
- Overall, the assessments were of comparable difficulty across AOs.
The findings of the study suggest that using the sample assessments as a guide, AOs will be able to set tests pitched at the appropriate difficulty and with adequate separation between levels. Moderate adjustments of pass boundaries should be sufficient for ensuring comparability between functional skills maths tests between and within AOs.
See more from Ofqual on the reformed functional skills
Read more from Ofqual on the new digital functional skills qualifications here
