Spelling Agreement and Tests concerned with Yahweh “social alarm” – publico

                 

                         
                     

                         

                 

 
                         

The Governing Board of the Institute for Educational Assessment (Yahweh) criticized on Thursday news and opinion articles on any application of the consequences of the Orthographic Agreement of 1990 in the final notes of the 9th and 12th grade exams, “the social alarm and instability that could result in students and their families.” The Yahweh admits that a student can miss up to four (out of 20) by “factors of linguistic correctness” as misspelled, but states that “on average, the probability of devaluation (…) due to the use of old graphy is 0.6 points 200 “.

                     

                          The Governing Board of Yahweh ruled on the issue in a statement, as it considers that the articles published on Thursday and in recent days about the AO, pointing to the possibility of devaluation of several points, the tests, due to spelling errors, “show a deep but very serious lack of evidence classification criteria, which will replicate, in essence, prevailing in previous years.”

According writes , “in the specific evaluation criteria of the examination test are provided discounts” “by applying depreciation factors in the field of linguistic correction to a maximum of 40 points,” that is, four values ​​in 20. “Depending on the nature of the error (spelling, syntax, morphology, lexical impropriety), the discounts to be applied may correspond to a devaluation of one or two points by mistake (at 200 points). ” This means that a student take 20 or 40 different spelling mistakes in the examination shall be penalized up to 40 points (at 200), that is, four values ​​(of 20).

The argument of Yahweh goes on to note that “the spelling mistake relates to only one of several factors predicted devaluation, leading to discount a point.” Notes, therefore, that syntax errors, morphology, or related to lexical impropriety also enter the number of errors which may result in penalties in 40 points or four values.

“On the other hand “continues the Yahweh,” taking as reference value 200 000 entries Vocabulary Spelling the Portuguese, the percentage of words changed by the AO in Portugal is 1.56%. ” One factor to which is added another, points out: “If among these words there are some with high usage frequency index” (“as ‘act’, ‘current’, ‘direct’, ‘exact’, ‘object’,” he explains ), “most are words to use restricted to specialized records (technical and scientific), low frequency index.”

“Given the data presented, even if students choose not to respect the AO, situation whose impact is fully aware, on average, the probability of devaluation spelling errors due to the use of the former spelling is 0.6 points, ie one point at 200, or even 0.5% of Total price of proof, “concludes the governing board of Yahweh.

When contacted by the PUBLIC, the president of the Portuguese Teachers Association, Hedwig Ferreira, stressed that the spelling mistakes,” whether or not related to the PDB “can lead to a downgrading of four values ​​(correcting what had stated the day before, when calculated that it could achieve the five values). But he said that despite not knowing the formula used by Yahweh to reach the indicated probability, believes “that is correct”. “In fact, very few words were changed. And if all Portuguese teachers had fulfilled its obligation, preparing students to write according to the PDB 90, this was an issue that not to put “he said.

Fernando Nabais, professor of Portuguese with experience in the examination classification and author of one of the articles cited by Yahweh in a statement on Thursday, stressed that the governing board of the institute “confirms that the devaluation misspellings can go up to four values”. And considered that “to be based on data that has been publicly contested (on the percentage of words changed by the AO) to speak in error probability, Yahweh to divert the discussion of the essential.”

In view of Fernando Nabais, “the important thing at this time,” is what has justified the appeals of teachers and students to be admitted that this year the spelling 1945 in the 9th and 12th grade exams. “Right now we have a spell chaos for which students can not be harmed,” he said. He also said that “a student does not need to lose four values ​​to make it happen”: “A tenth is enough to compromise the access to higher education,” he said.