ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at confidence-based marking (CBM) at University College London over the last ten years. The CBM strategy was initially introduced to improve formative self-assessment and to encourage students to think more carefully about questions in objective tests. It became known as LAPT (London Agreed Protocol for Teaching: <www.ucl.ac.uk/lapt>;) through collaboration between a number of medical schools now mainly subsumed within UCL and Imperial College London. We have recently developed web-based tools for dissemination and evaluation in other institutions and new disciplines, and since 2001 we have been using CBM at UCL for summative (years 1 and 2) medical exams. CBM is seen by our students as simple, fair, readily understood and beneficial. They are motivated to reflect and justify reasons either for confidence or reservation about each answer, and they gain by expressing true confidence, whether high or low.
