How reliable are component grades as predictors of qualification grades?

Abstract

Following the cancellation of GCSE and A level exams in summer 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there were concerns that the summer 2021 exam series may also be affected. In this report, we used data from the OCR awarding body in 2019 to investigate the potential impact on final grades of students if they were only able to sit a single component in a subject in 2021. The main finding was that the average percentage of students who would have received the same grade from using just one component or from using the whole qualification was around 50%, both for GCSEs and for A levels. The average percentage of students within one grade was 93.2% for GCSE components and 95.5% for A level components Non-exam assessment (NEA) component grades were mostly less reliable than the grades in non-NEA components from the same qualification. Therefore, using NEA grades to predict final grades would be likely to be less accurate than using grades from an examined component.