A Century of Grading Research

Abstract

Grading refers to the symbols assigned to individual pieces of student work or to composite measures of student performance on report cards. This review of over 100 years of research on grading considers five types of studies: (a) early studies of the reliability of grades, (b) quantitative studies of the composition of K-12 report card grades, (c) survey and interview studies of teachers' perceptions of grades, (d) studies of standards-based grading, and (e) grading in higher education. Early 20th century studies generally condemned teachers' grades as unreliable. More recent studies of the relationships of grades to tested achievement and survey studies of teachers' grading practices and beliefs suggest that grades assess a multidimensional construct containing both cognitive and non-cognitive factors reflecting what teachers value in student work. Implications for future research and for grading practices are discussed.

The Influence of Anxiety and Self-Efficacy on Statistics Performance: A Path Analysis

“…After course grades were submitted, final exam scores were compiled by the supervising faculty member, and all identifying information was removed before any data was given to the student researcher. Final exam scores were converted to percentages before any analyses were conducted; in the literature, exam grades are often discussed in the form of percentages, so that the reader can more easily interpret the performance of students (Brookheart et al, 2016). Although these two required courses were sequential in nature, no student's data was in both courses because data was collected during only a single semester.…”

Definitions of Formative Assessment Need to Make a Distinction Between a Psychometric Understanding of Assessment and “Evaluative Judgment”

“…This is clearly seen in research on teachers' grading, where intuitive and holistic approaches are used to aggregate multiple sources of evidence into a single grade. Under such circumstances, the assessment is heavily influenced by the idiosyncratic beliefs of individual teachers, resulting in a situation where grades from different teachers differ substantially (e.g., Brookhart et al, 2016;Malouff and Thorsteinsson, 2016). Most interestingly, for the argument made here, is that even in cases where teachers agree on (a) which criteria to use, (b) the strengths and weaknesses in students' performances, and (c) the rank order of students-they still assign different grades (Jönsson and Balan, 2018).…”

Development and Evaluation of the Nebraska Assessment of Computing Knowledge

“…The quality of classroom tests can vary widely, and when reported in research, details about the development process or psychometric characteristics are usually unavailable. Grades are composites of a variety of factors (e.g., tests, performance assessments, participation) that differ widely across instructors and courses, and as such, are of inconsistent and questionable validity when used as a generalizable measure of learning (Brookhart et al, 2016). Self-reports of perceived learning also have validity concerns.…”