As almost an outside observer, I find this both interesting and perhaps a bit concerning.

Are we really saying that UK wide we only need to replace less than 100 folk a year, who are competent to design erect and verify an electrical installation ?

To me this seems very low - even if each successful candidate then goes on to have  a 40- 50 year working life with that knowledge, then this imlies there are only a few thousand such competent folk working in the UK at any one time, a fraction of the total -which still seems low.

Or perhaps the qualification is not really needed, perhaps is overly theoretical or in other ways difficult (but reading the examiners comments, it does not seem so - understanding ADS and being able to decide the cable size to use in a given case ought to be bread and butter stuff, and not being able to is a reasonable ground for losing marks, indeed failing.

So maybe there is another discouraging factor - the cost, not enough exam time, a requirement to wear fancy dress to take the exam or something ?

And,  what are the other folk calling themselves 'electricians' doing, if not installing and verifying things they have designed ? And, then do we know how well/ badly are they doing it ?

So why so few candidates and then why so few pass?

It seems a lot of effort and excessive secrecy to put on a full exam nationwide for what is less than one lecture theatre   full of candidates from all over the whole country.

I am not sure of the significance of Chris's comment that an exam is summative rather than formative,and I'd like to be

To me all knowledge is worth acquiring, and if the aim of the exam is to demonstrate that  a candidate understands the topic there are many ways to achieve that - is the problem that the failures do not understand, or that the exam does not let them demonstrate their ability?

I have no answers but the numbers suggest right now this is really a dead duck of an exam, both for the C and G, and worse for most of the folk investing their hard earnt dosh into taking it, - and yet Lyle must be doing something very different, and I suggest very right, because his students actually pass.

So perhaps if this skill  is not to  fade away, replaced by Amtech or something, the effort needs to be to train the (other) trainers first so they also know what target their students are supposed to be aiming at rather than where they currently are.

Mike

mapj1 said:

I am not sure of the significance of Chris's comment that an exam is summative rather than formative

I simply repeated what the Open University has to say. So tutor marked assignments have to be submitted every few weeks and are returned with feedback. They are formative inasmuch as students are intended to learn from their mistakes (or celebrate their successes).

End of module assignments are similar, but feedback is limited to a grade (distinction, merit, etc) for each question. There are also traditional exams, but since covid, they are done at home and, I suspect will continue that way to save the cost of renting exam halls. The aims are different: (1) has the student acquired the appropriate knowledge; (2) can the student regurgitate it; (3) is the regurgitation in the required format?

Providing feedback would increase the workload of the examiners/assessors considerably and of course there is an argument that on completion of an exam, the course has finished.

mapj1 said:

I am not sure of the significance of Chris's comment that an exam is summative rather than formative

I simply repeated what the Open University has to say. So tutor marked assignments have to be submitted every few weeks and are returned with feedback. They are formative inasmuch as students are intended to learn from their mistakes (or celebrate their successes).

End of module assignments are similar, but feedback is limited to a grade (distinction, merit, etc) for each question. There are also traditional exams, but since covid, they are done at home and, I suspect will continue that way to save the cost of renting exam halls. The aims are different: (1) has the student acquired the appropriate knowledge; (2) can the student regurgitate it; (3) is the regurgitation in the required format?

Providing feedback would increase the workload of the examiners/assessors considerably and of course there is an argument that on completion of an exam, the course has finished.

Thank you for the reply, though I am clearly having a dense moment, as I am wondering what is being summed and what be being formed, for surely if this refers to the accumulation of critical thinking and understanding in the head of the candidate then it cannot be forming without the addition of new information.

It is not directly related bur the comparison between university education and the City and Guilds type is very marked. I should admit say I know far more about the former, having not only been a university student, but also a later a research fellow, lab demonstrator, and leading the occasional tutorials.  I have however never been paid to lecture ;-)

In contrast in my dealings with C &G I have only ever been a candidate, and mostly that was in the last century.

I am not sure how much learning should be pushed, as it is during the lower years at school where you sit still and are taught by someone who knows more about it than you, and how much should be the student pulling, where the student is  interested enough to go and pull together information from many sources and will end up knowing  more than, or if not more then at least some combination of information that is not the same as anyone else's including the tutors/lectures/professors of the faculty in which they are studying, This allows that person to draw their own unique insights, which may well be truly original. Or you may think they are until they are found in some obscure paper from the other side of the planet from 20 years ago.

Clearly as the academic level rises, then the latter method should dominate - after all at the top of the game there is no-one any more expert to ask if you wanted to ;-) let alone be taught by, but the correct point to outgrow teachers seems to vary by individual.

I suspect in both sorts of institution you get students who get to the end and fail to have absorbed any relevant and useful knowledge, but hopefully not a large fraction in either case.

Equally in terms of hours of study vs cost, C & G looks very pricey, or university very cheap, and I am not sure why. (a £9K course gets you a year of study, and in a science subject  that means several hours of lectures each week, and lots of access to very good library and experimental faculties.  Arts may vary.)

Mike

mapj1 said:

Thank you for the reply, though I am clearly having a dense moment, as I am wondering what is being summed and what be being formed, for surely if this refers to the accumulation of critical thinking and understanding in the head of the candidate then it cannot be forming without the addition of new information.

I suppose that the students brain is being formed. Assess and then target training at weak areas. On completion summarise the process by finding out what the student knows.

Monkey see, monkey do may be enough to pass some exams, but if you are taught why as well as what, it does seem to make the process easier.

if you are taught why as well as what, it does seem to make the process easier.

Ah yes, that is indeed something I agree with whole- heartedly - though not the words I would have used to express the concept.

Nor do I really see why releasing a few previous papers for hopeful candidates (and tutors also) to chew over and test their mettle in advance prevents that studying process.

M

mapj1 said:

Nor do I really see why releasing a few previous papers for hopeful candidates (and tutors also) to chew over and test their mettle in advance prevents that studying process.

Well, there is the Slome method. (brief resumé here) The MCQ items of the primary FRCS exam were a closely guarded secret, not least because of the difficulty of increasing the question bank. So his candidates were given a number and a postcard. When it came to the, "put your pens down and stop writing moment", each candidate then turned to his or her numbered question and had to do his or her best to remember it. Immediately upon leaving the premises, the question was written on the postcard and promptly posted back to the Prof. Naturally, the questions were discussed during the course.

Coming back (in a roundabout way) to Lyle, given that the overall pass rate of the primary FRCS was 15% and that 75% of Slome's pupils passed, the chance of passing if you didn't do Slome's course was about 5%.

So if 64/170 candidates passed and 7 of Lyle's passed, and perhaps a few other teachers had a similar pass rate, it really does not say much for all of the rest.

Now a question for Lyle: if a pupil has been struggling (I assume that you do formative assessments, or dry runs if you prefer) do you put him or her forward for the assessment?