Abstract
The Higher School Certificate (HSC) is the credential awarded to secondary school students in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. This paper reviews the current moderation process of the HSC and introduces and compares a range of modern statistical methods. With a comprehensive analysis of the complete 2013–2016 HSC results, we show that the monotone spline regression with the Huber loss function consistently beats the existing moderation method. With its simple structure, fast execution and improved effectiveness, this new moderation model is an ideal replacement of the in-force quadratic for the HSC practice in NSW.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 257-283 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics |
Volume | 63 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 29 Jun 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jun 2021 |
Keywords
- Huber loss
- higher school certificate
- moderation
- monotone spline