There is a considerable amount of focus on the grading systems applied in higher education, as it is an important tool for ranking undergraduate students' in terms of their academic success. Several studies have suggested that different grading practices exist among various colleges. This is also the case in Norway, even though the intention is to…

This article describes a framework of Standards-Based Grading suitable for use in a variety of mathematics courses. We detail our experience adapting this framework to various courses, ranging from Pre-calculus to Differential Equations, at four different institutions, including both small liberal arts colleges and large universities, and in class…

Praising is considered to have a positive effect on learners' motivations. Yet, what to praise and how to praise is an issue of controversy. The present study looks at the effect of praising ESL learners' writing efforts in English as opposed to evaluating their writing abilities in order to test Dweck (2007) theory of praising intelligence or…

The controversial bell curve has received considerable attention in recent years as a grade distribution tool where "norm-referenced grading involves comparing students' performances with each other" rather than where they fall on a "predefined continuum of quality" (Brookhart, 2013, p. 258). Despite educators' deep concern on…

Students' anxiety with grading in self and peer-assessment in an EFL context has not been examined extensively in the international literature in educational research. This mixed-method study surveyed English learners (N=100) using Gurbanov's self and peer-assessment questionnaire, and interviewed their teachers in Cambridge English College (N=7)…

A vast research literature documents racial bias in teachers' evaluations of students. Theory suggests bias may be larger on grading scales with vague or overly-general criteria versus scales with clearly-specified criteria, raising the possibility that well-designed grading policies may mitigate bias. This study offers relevant evidence through a…

In spite of a host of scholarship pertaining to response and the contexts that surround our response practices, few have studied how everyday classroom texts may inform students' interpretations of teachers' written feedback on their writing. This article examines the results from case studies of six students across two first-year composition…

This study examined how teachers' grading impacts students' socio-cultural notions of value and worth. At issue was whether teachers can grade in ways that foster democratic ideals; whether authentic democratic environments can truly exist in public school classrooms; and whether or not traditional grading supersedes learning in favor of…

The author of this article describes his experiences in teaching huge classes of principles of economics over the last half-century. He lays out changes in pedagogy and illustrates various novel devices used to explain economic ideas and hold students' attention. Additionally, he considers the appropriate sizes of intro classes and weighs the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the specific factors teachers consider when assigning students' report card grades. Data were gathered from 943 K-12 teachers from five school districts in a southeastern state in the United States who completed the "Teachers' Grading Practices Survey." Analyses focused on how teachers weigh…

In-class participation is a common component of many university students' course grade, yet there has been some debate over whether it is fair to grade participation, given that some students are " naturally" introverted. In this paper, we problematize the central assumption that the arguments against grading participation rest upon:…

Physics students have traditionally prepared many kinds of reports-- laboratory, activity, project, and even book or article reports. Smartphones and YouTube videos are familiar cultural objects to current students, and our students use smartphone cameras to include photographs of apparatus, phenomena, hand-sketched figures, graphs, and…

To understand the persistent social class achievement gap, researchers have investigated how educational settings affect lower versus higher socioeconomic status (SES) students' performance. We move beyond the question of actual performance to study its assessment by evaluators. We hypothesized that even in the absence of performance differences,…

This research evaluated the effects of adopting a common grading practice at a public career and technical high school in Delaware. The research participants were four Algebra I teachers with more than ten years of teaching experience. For the first marking period of school year 2018-2019, the teachers applied a common grading practice to their…

This explanatory sequential mixed methods study aimed at exploring the grading decision-making of Iranian English language teachers in terms of the factors used when assigning grades and the rationales behind using those factors. In the preliminary quantitative phase, a questionnaire was issued to 300 secondary school and private institute EFL…