Agreement of driving examiners’ assessments – Evaluating the reliability of the Swedish driving test

The purpose of this study was to examine the consistency of examiner assessments of test-takers’ performance on the Swedish driving test. The study included 535 tests and was designed so that the ordinary examiner and a supervising examiner assessed the same test-taker. The assessment was done on a two-grade rating scale (pass/fail). Since the result can be affected by factors associated with the test-taker and the two examiners, questionnaires were developed and these were filled in by the test-takers and the examiners. Information about the administration of the test was collected via a specially designed form filled in by the supervising examiner. Using this form, the ordinary examiners’ performance was rated on a number of aspects. The result from the study indicated that the agreement between the assessments was very good. For 93% of the tests the two examiners chose the same mark on the two-grade scale. In the cases where ratings differed, the analysis indicated only a few systematic differences among variables designed to provide possible explanations for differences in opinion. However, none of these was problematic with respect to consistency of assessment. Results indicated that most tests were carried out in a satisfactory manner.

► The result on the Swedish driving test has high reliability.
► Driver examiners agree in their judgments for 93% of the tests.
► Systematic differences did not pose a threat to the reliability of the test.