Annex A : Relationship between application rates and GCSE attainment
1 . Most individuals take GCSE exams at the end of Key Stage 4 , roughly one year before starting to make decisions about applying to higher education . GCSE attainment therefore defines the context in which the application decision is made and is one of the most important factors associated with participation in higher education .
2 . This annex repeats analysis from our original evaluation , showing that there continues to be a strong positive relationship between prior academic attainment and application rates , and that this relationship differs between learners from Uni Connect areas and those from other areas . 40
3 . In this analysis , we have used GCSE results recorded at Key Stage 4 . Some learners will improve their GCSE results during Key Stage 5 , but we do not include those results in this analysis .
4 . Key Stage 4 qualifications ( such as GCSEs ) have been reformed since 2017 , the year in which the Uni Connect programme was launched . 41 The methods of assessment were changed to include more emphasis on examinations at the end of the course and grades were recategorised from A * to G to grades of 9 to 1 . English and Maths were the first subjects to be reformed , with the first new results awarded to learners in the summer 2017 GCSE cohort , who could have first applied aged 18 in the 2019 UCAS application cycle . Other subjects were reformed in subsequent years , meaning that , in some years , there was a combination of both new and original grades awarded .
5 . We were mindful of these reforms when establishing a measure of GCSE attainment that was consistent over time . We first adopted the same list of approved Key Stage 4 qualifications used by the Department for Education ( DfE ) in its school and college performance tables , in order to determine which qualifications should count as GCSE equivalences . 42 This then allowed us to identify the overall number of GCSEs ( or equivalences ) at grades A * to C ( or 9 to
40
See www . officeforstudents . org . uk / publications / uni-connect-national-evaluation /.
41
See www . gov . uk / government / publications / get-the-facts-gcse-and-a-level-reform / get-the-facts-gcse-reform .
42
This list of approved Key Stage 4 qualifications is available at www . gov . uk / government / publications / keystage-4-qualifications-discount-codes-and-point-scores . To ensure greater consistency over time in our measure of attainment , we deviated from one aspect of the DfE methodology , namely that ‘ entries into Combined science count as one entry [ from 2018 onwards ], whereas in previous years entry into core and additional would count as two entries .’ We instead decided to count double awards twice for the 2018 and 2019 GCSE cohorts , because counting them once created a noticeable discontinuity in the time series . Even with this change , it is inevitable that GCSE reforms will have created other discontinuities in our measure of attainment over time , which are not possible to account for . Further information about the impact of GCSE reforms is available at www . gov . uk / government / statistics / gcse-and-equivalent-results-2017-to-2018- provisional . A timeline of Key Stage 4 attainment changes are available in the ‘ Quality and methodology information ’ document at www . gov . uk / government / statistics / key-stage-4-performance-2019-provisional
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