In the MYP, the ePortfolio components including the personal project are subject to external moderation of teachers’ internal marking.
Moderation is a checking procedure whereby an external examiner reviews a sample of teacher-assessed coursework and establishes whether the teacher-awarded marks are correct, too harsh or too lenient.
In cases where teacher-awarded marks are either too harsh or too lenient, a moderation factor is determined and applied to all of the school’s marks for that particular component so that students, schools and higher education institutions can be confident of a consistent (global) standard for internal assessment between schools.
The purpose of moderation
The purpose of moderation is to ensure that all internal assessment marks are of an equivalent standard. This means a student would get the same mark for the quality of their work whoever marks it.
Within a school, all teachers should standardize their marking so they are consistent with each other. The IB then extends this so all schools are consistent with each other.
Outcomes of moderation
The ideal outcome of moderation is that the IB identifies that schools are in line with the global standard and no adjustment is required.
Where there is a discrepancy, a moderation factor will be applied to the marks of all students. The school will also receive feedback on how their marking differed from the global standard.
