Marking and Grading

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Marking and Grading
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Grading and Marking

• Primary function
• Clear communication to
• Pupils.
• Parents.
• Counselors.
• Other teachers.
• Other schools.
• College admissions officers.
• Employers.

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Grading and Marking

• Three audiences are most important
• Parents.
• Students.
• School administration.
• Poor or incorrect grading procedures can have
  deleterious consequences.
• Can you think of some of these?

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Critical Purpose of Grading and Marking
Communication

• Communication about the pupils academic
  achievement.
• Summary judgement about how well the student has
  mastered instructional objectives (learning
  targets).
• Grades
• Should be concise without loss of information.
• Should minimize errors in interpretation.
• Should inform, not conceal or confuse.

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Grading and Marking

• Incidental functions of grading
• Feedback.
• Motivation.
• Guidance.
• Should never be used for punishment or reward.

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Grading as Judgement

• Grading requires Teachers judgement
• Teachers know their students best.
• Judgements are based on
• information about the student (test scores, book
  reports, performance assessments, informal
  assessments, etc.).
• some basis of comparison for translating
  information about the student into a grade.
• Question Do we need the same information for ALL
  students?

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Possible Bases for Grading and Marking

• Consider the following bases for making decision
  about students grades
• Comparisons with aptitude or ability.
• Comparisons with improvement.
• Comparisons with effort.
• Comparisons with other students.
• Comparisons with standards.
• Combinations of grading bases.

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Bases for Grading and MarkingComparisons with
Aptitude

• Give high grades to students who perform above
  their ability.
• Requires an estimate of ability.
• What is over-achievement?
• What is under-achievement?
• There are numerous flaws with basing grading and
  marking on comparisons with ability.

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Flaws Associated with Comparisons with Aptitude

• Estimates of ability tend to be informal and
  unreliable.
• Low correlation between (estimates of) ability
  and achievement.
• Regression to the mean
• Low ability kids always score closer to the group
  average on achievement.
• High ability kids always scores closer to the
  group average on achievement.
• Lower aptitude kids get lower scores on
  achievement but receive higher grades.
• Higher aptitude kids get higher scores on
  achievement but receive lower grades.

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Bases for Grading and MarkingComparisons with
Improvement

• Improvement Posttest Pretest
• Posttests and pretests may be informal
  assessments.
• Problems include
• We need to understand what this implies.
• Gain (difference) scores tend to be unreliable.
• The lower the correlation (between pre- and
  post-) the more susceptible to regression
  effects.
• Negative correlation between initial status and
  improvement.
• Higher grades go to students who know less low
  grades to students who know more.

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Bases for Grading and MarkingComparisons with
Effort

• Typically used in elementary grades
• to manipulate motivation.
• to protect or foster self-esteem.
• Students who appear to learn easily seem less
  deserving than those who struggle.
• Requires sound measures of effort.

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Bases for Grading and MarkingComparisons with
Other Students

• Grading on the curve.
• Fixed percentages of students get As, Bs, etc.
• Readily understood by parents, students, others.
• Appeals to common sense.
• For classroom assessment, grading on the curve
  has several disadvantages.

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Problems with Grading on the Curve

• A certain percentage must pass must fail.
• Setting percentages is arbitrary.
• Not particularly effective in communicating
  achievement status.
• Actual standards tend to fluctuate with class to
  class performances.
• Also looking for natural gaps in the
  distribution of scores doesnt work.

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Bases for Grading and MarkingComparisons with
Standards

• Students independent performances are judged.
• All students have potential for achieving the
  highest grade.
• Meaning of grades based on (clear) standards is
  easily communicated.
• The difficulty is in setting standards, which can
  shift up or down without teachers awareness.

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Combining Various Bases for Grading and Marking
Hodgepoge Grading

• Sometimes any one basis is seen as
  unsatisfactory.
• Achievement combined with effort is
  commonespecially in elementary grades.
• Often, teachers use whichever procedure yields
  the highest grade.
• All combinations reduce the effectiveness of
  grades to communicate what it is that is being
  graded.

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What should a teacher do?

• There are no perfect solutions.
• Grading on the basis of preset, fixed standards
  is probably best in terms of effective
  communication about academic accomplishments.
• However, setting standards is a difficult
  undertaking.
• It requires considerable reflection.
• Standards must be reasonable and obtainable.

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When grading, answer these three questions

• Against what standard will I compare my pupils
  performance?
• What aspects of pupil performance will I include
  in my grades?
• How will different kinds of evidence be weighted
  in assigning grades?

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What about using zeros?

• One of the worst offenses in grading is the
  indiscriminant use of zeros. Not completing an
  assignment does not mean zero achievement or
  learning.
• James H. McMillan (1997). Classroom Assessment
  Principles and Practice for Effective
  Instruction, p. 317.

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• Rarely does a zero in a grade book represent
  actual performance on an assessment. This is
  interesting, because that is exactly what a zero
  for an academic grading component should
  represent. Zeros should not be used for other
  purposes because they distort the picture of the
  students true performance.
• Jo D. Gallagher (1993). Classroom Assessment for
  Teachers. p. 419.

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