Blog Eighteen - Navigating Grading through a variety of approaches
Assessing student performance, also known in a more common form: grading, is fundamentally rooted in the idea that mistakes and feedback are necessary for student learning. Since this is such a broad task, many approaches have emerged to figure out how to navigate it. These approaches have to deal with many caveats of this problem, for example, how to traverse the delicate interplay between feedback providing an opportunity for reflection and feedback providing stress.
Interestingly, while the Standards-Based grading system is often known as the newer system compared to percentages, a similar idea was one of the first examples of grading. Yale, in 1785, divided student work into four categories, one of the first examples of an official, recorded grading system. The common standards-bang system of today divides an assignment into a set of specific learning targets-- in other words, it grades student performance against a set of skills that are meant to be strengthened from the activity or lesson. Generally, each skill is given a rating from Emerging(1) to Advanced(4). Strobel Education’s “Exploring The Pros And Cons Of Standards-Based Grading Systems” discusses how focusing on specific skills and standards increases the effectiveness of standards-based grading. This can partially be attributed to the fact that knowing where a student requires improvement in their learning makes it easier to identify potential gaps in content knowledge and, more importantly, to take action and attempt to ease these gaps.
Additionally, assessing individual skills rather than overall student work can lead to more intrinsic learning motivation. When students know what they need to learn, it is easier to begin enhancing their content knowledge. More straightforward objectives will increase the drive to study since the goal is less vague and more clearly in sight. Yet, the grading system also brings many flaws, most of which stem from its practical implementation. For starters, it places increased pressure on educators for clearly defined feedback and rubrics. Also, transitioning to this grading system from a previously used one would create friction and lost time.
As the public school system became more of a staple in early childhood life around the early 1900s (partially due to education becoming compulsory around the time), schools required a more objective and standardized approach to evaluating student assessment. This need to change the evaluation system bore the percentage system, which uses a scale of 1-100 points to rank student performance. One of the pros to percentage-based grading is that it easily translates into a letter grade, making it easier to manage. Since percentages are the standard for converting into letter grades, teachers won’t have to create separate rubrics that detail what is considered an A. However, since it is hard to determine what differentiates an eighty-nine from a ninety or a fifty-five from a fifty-six, the standards will not be as straightforward for students. Trying to divide students into one hundred different proficiency levels will likely blur the standards and make the grading seem unreliable. While some may argue that these levels help distinguish work into more categories than four or five (like in Standards-Based Gading), this does not help beyond a certain point. The University of Kentucky’s “The Case Against Percentage Grades” describes this as an “illusion of precision.” An increased number of categories does not necessarily mean that these categories are well defined, and percentage-based grading is an exemplary depiction of that. This leads to more room for biases since teachers can justify it with the imaginary precision that the percentage system offers when, in truth, two students would likely have been at the same performance level if the levels were clearly defined. Besides, alternatives to the percentage system allow something that the percentage system does not: clearly defined criteria for an exact grade. Students can know how much grammar is weighted or how many points they can receive for a partially correct solution. With fewer levels, the illusion of precision is not there, leading to true precision being implemented in its place.
The pass/fail system is another alternative to the evaluation systems mentioned above. Rather than receiving a traditional evaluation of scores, students will receive either a passing mark or a failing mark. This system aims to allow students the opportunity to delve into a class without it negatively impacting their GPA in the case that they get a lower grade. This encourages students to take courses that may prove to be more challenging or out of their comfort zone, as the consequences for making mistakes are not as heavy. In turn, students may begin exploring a wider variety of subject ranges rather than staying with a select few. Editor and critic Susannah Gruder describes this as “[the] liberty to fully embrace the kind of intellectual curiosity that should be at the heart of a college experience.” The system attempts to navigate the nuances of student evaluation and the border between it being a source of stress and a source of feedback. However, many argue that the stress is necessary and that the pass/fail system can allow students to slack off since the “pass” mark acts like a veil that hides all efforts above the bare minimum. Since it is not reflected in their grades, many students will begin to believe that all efforts above what is required to pass will go unrewarded, and the motivation that drives students to learn will slowly start to dim. In contrast to what was mentioned above with the other two methods, the lack of feedback will also lead to less improvement. Mistakes are an integral part of learning, as students will likely struggle with new concepts before fully understanding them. But, what they require to learn from their mistakes is a hint at where they may have gone wrong. The pass/fail system does not give students a clear assessment of a student’s performance level, and students will be unable to pinpoint where they need improvement.
To conclude, disadvantages and advantages are almost guaranteed for every approach. The important part is to decide on a system that meets the needs of students and educators while prioritizing their mental health and well-being above all else.
