This SoTL project explored sources of student anxiety and motivation across student assessment conditions of traditional numerical grading and pass/fail grading and sought to determine if pass/fail grading was helpful in lowering student anxiety while increasing student motivation to learn. Results indicated that students scored equally well on a…

Three field studies tested the hypothesis that anticipating a graded test as opposed to a pass-fail test enhances metacognitive monitoring. Participants were teacher candidates who completed a mid-term and a final test in psychology courses. Each participant chose whether the result of the final test should be evaluated with one of five grades or…

College students' categorical perceptions of numeric and alphabetic grades were examined by assigning participants to one of four conditions: numeric grades alphabetic grades, numeric non-grades and alphabetic non-grades. They were then asked to give ratings for each possible grade or non-grade, using a 10-point scale. Factor analysis revealed…

In this article, Thomas Deering addresses possibly the most written about component of teacher preparation: "student teaching." Deering states that a cursory examination of literature databases identified some 4000 articles on this topic, spanning the last three decades. An issue often related to Professional Development Schools (PDSs)…

A large number of medical schools have discontinued the use of letter and number grades and have adopted pass-fail or honors-pass-fail grading systems. The relationship of academic performance with the selection of first-year residents for a university-based program in internal medicine is examined. (MLW)

The results of a large survey, investigating preference given to students from graded schools when selecting residents, are analyzed. The respondents are directors of residency training programs. Preference and higher ratings of performance were given to graded students if their programs were in medicine, surgery, or obstetrics/gynecology.…

A survey to review practices for reporting student performance with nontraditional grading systems, to investigate the methods used to recognize outstanding student performance, and to survey the attitudes of medical school administrators concerning the recognition of excellence is described. (MLW)

To study the ways that new ways of sharing responsibility for teacher quality affect grading discourses and practices, more than 900 surveys were collected from student/intern teachers and cooperating teachers and supervisors over a 9-year period. Opinions about pass/fail grading for student/intern teaching were tabulated and analyzed. Additional…

In an effort to evaluate the undergraduate pass-fail option system of grading at the University of Texas at Austin, 869 undergraduate students, 269 faculty members, and 35 administrators participated in a questionnaire survey. Results indicated: (1) During the 1973 fall semester, 3,896 undergraduate course registrations out of a total of 155,133…

Performance in a second-year course in pedodontics/orthodontics for three classes at the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine who received grades under an honors/pass/fail system was compared to that of three academically comparable classes that received letter grades. (Author/MLW)

A study compared freshman medical student achievement and satisfaction under two grading schemes: a four-level grading plan (honors, high pass, pass, fail) with two examinations, and pass-fail with weekly quizzes. Under the latter system, students continued to perform well and reported greater satisfaction. (MSE)

An Honors-Pass-Fail (H-P-F) grading system was introduced experimentally to replace A-B-C-F grading in all graduate education courses. H-P-F was more effective than A-B-C-F grading in distinguishing between exceptional and average student achievement. The percentage of highest possible grades declined from 50 percent A's to about 25 percent H…

The results of a retrospective study of the psychiatry residency classes entering the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine between 1970 and 1975 show no significant difference in performance evaluations between residents in the graded and pass/fail groups. The two cohorts received almost identical overall grades. (JMD)

An examination of the grading policies at the 29 Michigan community colleges is presented. Six major classifications cover all grades given at the colleges: main grading system, pass-fail grades, withdrawal grades, incomplete grades, and audit options. The most common grade policy, used by 24 of the colleges, is the five grade system assigning…

Results of a study of the relationship between students' propensities to withdraw from a course and the faculty member's grading in that course show that students do use the option to withdraw from courses when grades tend to be low in order to protect their grade point averages. (JMD)