Scaling

The practice of adjusting the marks of a group of students eg a class cohort or tutorial group. Scales marks may be adjusted up or down usually as the result of a statistical calculation. Scaling does not change the rank order of students and is legitimately used when for example the average mark allocated to a particular cohort of students is considerably higher or lower that the performance demonstrated by the same cohort in other assessment items for the course or in other courses. However scaling should always be used with caution and should not be used to disguise problems with teaching or to force marks to fit a bell curve.