In 2020 the use of algorithms to replace exams to determine results hit the headlines when it was shown that they penalised students from state schools and low income postcodes. Although the algorithm was blamed as having made an error, in actual fact it was the design of the prediction model and the data which it used which caused the bias – and these are due to decisions made by humans on how they should be used.
Although the decision was reversed, algorithms have been and are being used to predict and award grades in a variety of different ways and countries, with some examples of how students from minority and underprivileged backgrounds are under-predicted.
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