Media Roles in Influencing the Public Understanding of Educational Assessment Issues

This paper explores the media coverage of UK national examination results. Utilising the findings from a previous Economic and Social Research Council-funded investigation into the media coverage of the release of General Certificate of Secondary Education and Advanced-level General Certificate of Education results, the paper builds on the findings of that study to explore wider implications. The earlier study had revealed the use of some standard "media templates", which led to a fairly predictable range of news stories whatever the pattern of results might be in any given year. This paper explores ways in which Awarding Organisations and others might be more proactive in trying to improve the way in which assessments and examinations are portrayed in the media. It also considers the wider implications of the role of the media in influencing the public understanding of assessment issues.