How did we get here?
In the lead-up to the 2024 VCE exams, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) published some exam materials on their website which, when copy and pasted into another document, revealed some sample questions and answers. A few of these questions and answers were similar to those that appeared in the actual VCE exams. These documents were available for students to download for at least two weeks.
In total, 65 exams were affected by this error.
What was the response?
The CEO of the VCAA, Kylie White, resigned. Marcia Devlin became the interim CEO.
The VCAA and Department of Education also announced that they would establish an independent expert advisory body to oversee the marking for the 2024 exams.
The Minister for Education’s office also announced a review of the VCAA to look closely at how the organisation works, and whether there are other improvements they can made to help prevent future mistakes like these. This review will happen in 2025.
65 exams were affected
Okay, so what did this mean for students?
After the news broke, the VCAA explained how they planned to run assessments this year. Their plan included three key steps:
First, all results in the affected exams were going to be reviewed. Any massive discrepancies in the answers would be identified.
Secondly, if identified, they would analyse the mark to determine if they thought the discrepancies were caused by students having access to the published materials. This could mean comparing how well you did to other students in your school, or how well you did in other exams. This was to help ensure a student who happened to do significantly better in VCE exams because of good study practice would not be penalised.
Thirdly, they said they would adjust student marks if any specific questions were noted to give anyone an unfair advantage. If necessary, the body said this could mean invalidating the exam questions as a whole and providing the students who sat that exam a full mark.
However, we now know that didn't need to happen.
What did happen?
The VCAA said that 25 out of the 65 impacted exams had enough differences between the sample and real exam questions. No student who had access to the published materials could have had an advantage over other students who took the exam.
The VCAA further said that some students might have had an advantage in 40 exams, but that they didn’t find any examples of this.
This leaves 5 exams, in which the VCAA said they did find cases where 69 students had unusual results. This means less than 1% of students who took the affected exams were impacted.
Turns out none of these students were in the same school or any other type of 'group’. The VCAA says this suggests these students weren’t collaborating to share this material.
Less than 1% of students who took the affected exams were impacted.
The VCAA gave the 69 students full marks according to the normal marking guides. But to make sure other students who took the exams weren’t disadvantaged, the 69 students’ scores were removed from the ‘standard score calculation’ which is what goes into scaling. Those students' marks were added in after.
Basically, if you’re in an affected exam, their higher mark won’t harm your scaling. This also means that no student was marked down because of what has happened.
We know this might be confusing, but VicSRC is confident that this process has meant that no students were disadvantaged or punished for their hard work during exams.
You can find out information directly from VCAA here.
