Specialist Scaling

[Romperait]

Hey, I've been wondering for a while about the downward trend of specialist maths' scaling in recent years.

Is there a reason for this trend and can we expect it to continue (i.e. is it simply a matter of the course becoming easier or competition being reduced)?

[AzureBlue]

I think it used to be an 'elite' subject that roughly only the top maths students in the state did but now lots of people do subjects just for the good scaling, thus level of the cohort goes down, thus scaling goes down unfortunately

[shinny]

Yeh, taken from a previous post of mine: 'It's basically that subjects which have traditionally been associated with the elite (and hence scaled more) are now becoming increasingly populated by weaker students who hope to make use of the scaling. However, the scaling starts to shift down once this cohort starts to sway from an elite profile increasingly towards the other end of the spectrum.' Pretty much AzureBlue said really.

[Romperait]

So could it be assumed that to some degree one's raw score for specialist would be higher now than in previous years because of the reduction in this elite competition (by comparison)?

I guess if that's the case then the smaller mark up shouldn't be enough of an excuse to drop the subject.

[thushan]

Yup

Take 10 people who all did spesh in different years (say 2001, 2002, 2003...2010), and assume they all had the same ability and did similarly well in it (in terms of exam marks, accounting for variation in exam difficulty), then you'd find (in theory) that raw scores would vary much more then scaled scores.

[BubbleWrapMan]

This makes me wonder, is there any way of finding out the number of kids enrolled in a 3/4 subject in any given year?

[thushan]

This makes me wonder, is there any way of finding out the number of kids enrolled in a 3/4 subject in any given year?

Yup, check VCE grade distributions reports.

[vea]

I think I've mentioned it before but many weaker students have started to realise that their aggregates would benefit more by doing subjects that they are stronger in, many students now taking further instead of spesh in order to exploit the apparently weak cohort there. For this reason I predict spesh scaling will scale more in the coming years...

[BubbleWrapMan]

This makes me wonder, is there any way of finding out the number of kids enrolled in a 3/4 subject in any given year?

Yup, check VCE grade distributions reports.

So I won't be able to find out the amount of people I'm up against next year until 2012?

[Greatness]

I think I've mentioned it before but many weaker students have started to realise that their aggregates would benefit more by doing subjects that they are stronger in, many students now taking further instead of spesh in order to exploit the apparently weak cohort there. For this reason I predict spesh scaling will scale more in the coming years...

ive been thinking along the same lines, but we are going to have to wait and see....

[BubbleWrapMan]

Well, in my school at least, there's only one spesh class in 2011 as opposed to the two in 2010.

[Greatness]

Well, in my school at least, there's only one spesh class in 2011 as opposed to the two in 2010.

lol opposite at mine.
1 last year and 2 this year (2011) but i think a fair amount of ppl will drop it at the start of enxt year...

[jimmy999]

Well, in my school at least, there's only one spesh class in 2011 as opposed to the two in 2010.

lol opposite at mine.
1 last year and 2 this year (2011) but i think a fair amount of ppl will drop it at the start of enxt year...

Every year my school only had one spesh class. In fact my year, we had 10 people in our spesh class, and that was the most we've had in years

[Greatness]

A few of the methods teachers at my school told a lot of students to do spesh because it helps methods. Also at my school if you've done the moethds/spesh combo, theres never been a student who hasnt scored 40+ in methods... i think that's the main reason why students do it at my school but i can see a fair amount of them really struggle (some already are with basic circular functions) or drop out because it's too difficult.

[Romperait]

A few of the methods teachers at my school told a lot of students to do spesh because it helps methods. Also at my school if you've done the moethds/spesh combo, theres never been a student who hasnt scored 40+ in methods... i think that's the main reason why students do it at my school but i can see a fair amount of them really struggle (some already are with basic circular functions) or drop out because it's too difficult.

That's actually amazing. There's plenty of kids at my school who do the methods and spesh combo in year 12 and would be lucky to get 35 for methods.