In today's schools, students can be given high grades in examinations and class performance. High grades can lead to the problem of inflated grades. Inflated grades can lead to grade inflation. The subject of this study is to investigate the existence of high grades in primary school, secondary school and high school. The main purpose of the…

Writing assessment is a key feature of most education systems, yet there are limitations with traditional methods of assessing writing involving rubrics. In contrast, comparative judgement appears to overcome the reliability issues that beset the assessment of performance assessment tasks. The approach presented here extends previous work on…

Statement of Purpose and Method of Study: Grade inflation has been recognized as a major concern for a particular rural school in the South. Research has shown that the problem of grade inflation existed on the high school and college levels, but the problem had not received much attention at the elementary level. As a result, the implementation…

We know from previous survey research that teachers who hold high expectations for all of their students significantly increase the odds that those young people will go on to complete high school and college. One indicator of teachers' expectations is their approach to grading--specifically, whether they subject students to more or less rigorous…

In a radical school choice reform in 1992, Sweden's education system was opened to private competition from independent for-profit and non-profit schools funded by vouchers. Competition was expected to produce higher-quality education at lower cost, in both independent and public schools. This two-pronged study first examines to what extent the…

Test-based accountability often produces score inflation. Most studies have evaluated inflation by comparing trends on a high-stakes test and a lower stakes audit test. However, Koretz and Beguin (2010) noted weaknesses of audit tests and suggested self-monitoring assessments (SMAs), which incorporate audit items into high-stakes tests. This…

Historically, final course grades of sixth- through eighth-grade language arts, mathematics, and eighth grade science students at the primary research site, Site A (pseudonym), suggest a high degree of grade inflation or disassociation when grade point averages (GPA) were compared to actual student performance levels as measured by annual state…

The aim of the National Numeracy Strategy is to raise standards in numeracy. Strong evidence for its success has, however, been lacking: most of the available data come from performance on National Test assessments administered in schools or from Ofsted reports, and is vulnerable to suggestions of bias. An opportunistic analysis of data from a…

The aim of the UK National Literacy Strategy is to raise standards in literacy. Strong evidence for its success has, however, been lacking: most of the available data comes from performance on tests administered in schools or from Office for Standards in Education reports and is vulnerable to suggestions of bias. An opportunistic analysis of data…

With reports that some of the nation's finest universities have been handing out A's like lollipops at Halloween, the lowering of standards in higher education has become a hot topic. But grading standards in primary and secondary education have received remarkably less attention. There are two major questions related to grading standards. First,…