THE RELIABILITY OF GENERAL CERTIFICATE OF EDUCATION EXAMINATION ENGLISH COMPOSITION PAPERS IN WEST AFRICA¹

After going through the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) usual standardization procedures for marking essay‐type tests, ten trained examiners independently marked the English Composition scripts of 100 Ghana candidates in General Certificate of Education Examination of June 1970. The marks awarded to 96 of the candidates by seven of the examiners were analysed to evaluate the extent to which the standardization procedures ensured: (a) high inter‐rater (reading) reliability, and (b) comparability of marks. An analysis of variance of the scores revealed that the examiners used different standards for marking and that the inter‐rater (reader) reliability was not satisfactory. Suggestions were made for the improvement of the reliability and comparability and for the use of multiple‐choice type tests to measure writing ability.