It is likely MSPs on the education committee will want to ask Janet Brown about the Higher Maths debacle.
Students sitting the new-look exam needed to barely get a third of the questions right to pass because it was so hard.
The SQA said it considers what went well and what improvements are needed every year.
Problems with the new-look Higher Maths paper cast a shadow over wider changes to Highers.
New-look Highers started to be phased in last year to tie them in better with the qualification that replaced Standard Grades and the wider changes to education through Curriculum for Excellence.
After the Higher Maths exam in May, students took to social media to complain the exam was far harder than the one they had expected.
When the results were released in August it emerged the pass mark had been lowered to just 34% while students needed just 60% to get an A Grade in a move unprecedented in a popular subject.
The pass mark for those students who sat the old Higher exam this year was 43%. That figure was also unusually low.
Grade boundaries and pass marks are always adjusted to ensure consistency from year to year as exams, inevitably, can always prove easier or harder than anticipated. It is relatively uncommon for the pass mark to be precisely 50%.
Only the new-look Highers are on offer this year.
The SQA’s chief executive Janet Brown is likely to face question on several topics when she appears before Holyrood’s education committee.
MSPs are likely to want to know just what happened with the maths exam – for instance she may be asked if there was a failure in the organisation’s quality control scheme or for her views on why the exam was, apparently, so different to the one many students and teachers had anticipated.
They may also want information on the steps being taken to avoid a repeat in the coming year.
A spokesman for the SQA said: “As we do every year, we will now consider what has gone well, and where we need to make improvements for the future.
“This is to ensure assessment and qualification standards remain high and that we take into account any learning from the current assessments in terms of the coverage of the curriculum and the level of demand.
“This is an annual process which assesses the performance of every assessment for each qualification and subject, at all levels.
“As in previous years, adjustments will be made to assessments for 2016 (coursework and exams) in light of experience from diet 2015 for National 5 and the new Higher, including Higher Maths.
“Principal assessors will then produce course reports for every subject, which are published later in the year. These reports highlight examples of successful performance and provide advice and guidance for teachers and lecturers on how to prepare future candidates.”
The spokesman added: “The reports also indicate areas in which recent exams have differed from those of previous years.
“These course reports and any actions taken for 2016 will also be discussed with SQA’s subject advisory practitioner groups which include teachers, lecturers, higher education representatives and professional associations.”a
