Marksheet CountAs

The CountAs function enables you to tag individual parts of the mark sheet to be counted as a category in a blueprint dimension.

In the blueprinting section we discussed how, where an item is tagged to particular value, the data collected in the exam can be aggregated and presented back to candidates in the candidate feedback report. For example, you might wish to inform candidates how they performed in a particular skill or discipline across the entirety of the exam and in comparison to the wider cohort.

The CountAs function takes this a step further. Instead of tagging at the item level you can instead tag individual elements of the mark sheet to be included in the aggregation. There are some example use cases described in the last section of this article.

Setting up a CountAs condition

To set up a CountAs condition:

• Step 1 of n

  Navigate to Items > (your item) > Marksheet, then select Options > Count as against the row on the mark sheet.

  

• Step 2 of n

  The next screen shows all of the blueprint dimensions available in your site. Select a dimension and choose a category tag.

  

  Only dimensions not yet used in item tagging will be visible. The same dimension cannot be used to tag both the item and a mark sheet element. This is to avoid double tag counting during aggregation.

The above can also be set at the global criteria level. That means wherever the criterion is applied to an item, the CountAs rules follow and are applied within the item.

Example usage

Earlier in the section we discussed the differences between checklist-based and criterion based marking and how those concepts are applied to mark sheets. The CountAs function is commonly applied in both situations:

• If you employ a checklist-based mark scheme, perhaps some of your mark sheet rows are measuring different things. An example could be several checklist rows assessing basic preparation and hygiene, and then a further set of rows related to the steps required to carry out the skill or procedure. By tagging each row accordingly, you can present feedback to candidates about how they performed in each of those different areas.
• Alternatively, if you use consistent domains, it is common practice to tag each domain so it is counted as its corresponding category in a blueprint dimension. This enables later aggregation of the scoring data. For example, if "communication skills" appears in 75% of your stations, with the domains tagged and counted as such, you can give candidates feedback about how they performed in the "communication skills" domain across all the stations where it has been used. 

The candidate feedback report article shows what this aggregated feedback might look like.