Further to the answer to question S1W-26333 by Nicol Stephen on 16 September 2002, what minor changes to the Organisation for Economic Co-o…

The minor changes are as follows:1. The test administrators were not provided with the type of group training specified by the OECD. This was because the tests were administered by a member of school staff rather than by someone appointed by the contractor. The use of school staff was not in breach of OECD procedures. The fact that the test administrators would have been experienced in supervising test situations meant that group training was considered unnecessary given the disruption this would have caused to schools.2. The contractor provided the test administrators with a summary of the OECD guidance, which was used to brief the pupils.3. The specified procedures state that 35 pupils from each school should sit the tests. As most of the test administrators were school teaching staff it was considered that groups of 30 pupils would be more appropriate for Scotland. Care was taken to ensure that the sampling of students was random and the smaller group did not introduce any bias into our results.Our aim is to ensure that all aspects of current OECD regulations are complied with in the 2003 study.