Suitable execution of moderation policy is challenging but crucial for the trustworthiness and credibility of internal high-stakes assessment systems. In formal education, policies are rarely implemented as intended. Instead, they are enacted in ways influenced by mediating factors including the internal and external contexts of organisations. Ball, Maguire and Braun’s (2012) contextual-dimensions heuristic provides a conceptualisation of organisation-specific contexts, which is useful when the organisation is the unit of analysis. However, comprehensive analysis of policy enactment—including that relating to moderation—warrants consideration of contexts narrower in scope than whole organisations and wider in scope than individual organisations. In this article, we modify Ball and colleagues’ heuristic, incorporating Biggs’ (1993) application of systems theory, to develop a new contextual framework for moderation that is applicable on multiple scales and enables such analysis. This framework is applied to a selection of contemporary moderation studies with scopes that vary from one course, to jurisdiction-wide, to illustrate its utility. Our framework captures the hierarchy of embedded, interacting systems within which moderation is enacted and makes contextual relationships visible, allowing consideration of perspectives between units of analysis. Our framework provides a nuanced conceptualisation of context that distinguishes between material and human factors, and intrinsic and extrinsic contexts. We present potential uses of the framework for education organisations, central agencies and researchers including as a tool for identifying contextual factors involved in executing moderation initiatives and identifying possible pressures, tensions and enablers.

适度政策的适当执行具有挑战性，但对于内部高风险评估系统的可信度和可信度至关重要。在正规教育中，政策很少按预期实施。相反，它们的制定方式受到包括组织内部和外部环境在内的中介因素的影响。Ball、Maguire 和 Braun (2012) 的上下文维度启发式方法提供了组织特定上下文的概念化，这在组织是分析单位时很有用。然而，对政策制定的全面分析——包括与适度相关的分析——需要考虑比整个组织范围更窄的背景，以及范围比个别组织更广泛。在本文中，我们修改了 Ball 及其同事的启发式方法，结合了 Biggs (1993) 对系统理论的应用，以开发一个适用于多个尺度并支持此类分析的新上下文框架。该框架适用于选择范围从一门课程到整个司法管辖区的当代适度研究，以说明其效用。我们的框架捕获了嵌入式交互系统的层次结构，在这些系统中进行了节制并使上下文关系可见，从而允许考虑分析单元之间的观点。我们的框架提供了区分物质因素和人为因素的上下文的细微概念化，以及内在和外在语境。我们为教育组织、中央机构和研究人员介绍了该框架的潜在用途，包括作为一种工具，用于识别执行缓和举措所涉及的背景因素，并识别可能的压力、紧张局势和促成因素。