Empathetic projections and affect reactions in examiners of ‘A’ level English and History

Victoria Faith Elliott

doi:10.1080/0969594X.2013.768597

Empathetic projections and affect reactions in examiners of ‘A’ level English and History

Victoria Faith Elliott

Education

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The affective element of examiner thinking is an under-researched phenomenon. This paper explores the data from a ‘think aloud’ study, discussed in relation to the literature on decision-making, in which English and History examiners demonstrated a variety of affect reactions to scripts. They created detailed mental projections of candidates, with whom they created pseudo-dialogue, as seen elsewhere in the literature, and to whom they have empathetic affect reactions. Participants also attempted to separate themselves from their affect reactions, perceiving and mediating a potential cause of inaccuracy of judgement. The theory of cognitive dissonance is drawn on to suggest an explanation for examiners’ recurrent voicing of affect reactions while they construct them as irrelevant to the decision-making process.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	266-280
Journal	Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice
Volume	20
Issue number	3
Early online date	4 Mar 2013
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/0969594X.2013.768597
Publication status	Published - 2013

Keywords

affect
empathy
essay marking
judgement

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10.1080/0969594X.2013.768597

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0969594X.2013.768597

Cite this

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AB - The affective element of examiner thinking is an under-researched phenomenon. This paper explores the data from a ‘think aloud’ study, discussed in relation to the literature on decision-making, in which English and History examiners demonstrated a variety of affect reactions to scripts. They created detailed mental projections of candidates, with whom they created pseudo-dialogue, as seen elsewhere in the literature, and to whom they have empathetic affect reactions. Participants also attempted to separate themselves from their affect reactions, perceiving and mediating a potential cause of inaccuracy of judgement. The theory of cognitive dissonance is drawn on to suggest an explanation for examiners’ recurrent voicing of affect reactions while they construct them as irrelevant to the decision-making process.

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Empathetic projections and affect reactions in examiners of ‘A’ level English and History

Abstract

Keywords

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