Schools are plagued with significant deficiencies in measurement and assessment methods. The practice of dropping grades to control unacceptable student behavior is wrong and probably illegal. Also, tests are often severely flawed or misused. Administrators must recognize sound assessment, reward it, and deny advancement to those violating its…

During a "planning" period in the teachers' lounge of a large American high school, conversation turned to uniform, numerical grading systems versus locally determined letter grades. Then various teachers attempted to apply numerical grades to a colleague's coffee-making skills, and a visiting superintendent missed out on a grade-A cup of coffee.…

Test misgrading is treated as a stochastic process. The expected number of misgradings, inter-occurrence time of misgradings, and waiting time for the "n"th misgrading are discussed based on a simple Poisson model and a hierarchical Beta-Poisson model. Examples of model construction are given. (SLD)

Discusses how attempts to be reasonable may cause teachers to create exceptions (for disadvantaged students) to the grading norm. Maintains that making exceptions may ultimately do students more harm than good. Discusses how the harm can be avoided. (SR)

After implementation of plus/minus grading, in a series of classes, students were given a choice as to which grading system they individually wanted. Students overwhelmingly chose the straight letter option by a two-to-one ratio. The difference in actual grades earned was minimal, but the preference was clear.

In this article, the author discusses the "O" grade that is sometimes given out to students who do not complete their work. The author feels there are two issues to consider and in this article, he discusses those two issues. First, and most important, is to determine the appropriate consequence for students who fail to complete an assignment. The…

One minor but irritating problem that most composition teachers face--especially those who handle masses of papers at the high school level--involves coming up with a method of grading that is demonstrably objective but not so rigid that it allows no room for judgment. The author proposes a hybrid grading system: combining numbers and letters. The…

Assessing student performance is one of the most critical aspects of the job of a classroom teacher, but many teachers do not feel adequately prepared to assess their students' performance. In order to measure and compare secondary preservice and inservice teachers' "assessment literacy", both groups were surveyed using the Classroom…

The Killer Whale, Shamu jumps through hoops and splashes tourists in hopes for the big fish, not because of passion, desire or simply the enjoyment of doing so. What would happen if those fish were obsolete? Would this killer whale be able to find the passion to continue to entertain people? Or would Shamu find other exciting activities to do…

Students enrolled in a senior-level psychology course used a computer-aided personalized system of instruction (CAPSI) to write tests, and give and receive feedback on their writing at a mastery level. Weekly measures of the number of unit tests requested, the number of unit tests cancelled, and informal student feedback all indicate that a change…

Access to undergraduate education has expanded rapidly in recent years. This is one manifestation of a rise in the relative importance of market-based resource allocation in higher education and a weakening of allocation based upon traditional views of merit. This change in priority has influenced the content of the undergraduate curriculum and…

This study deals with the introduction of an international grading scheme from the perspective of the educational providers, with the aim of creating a theory that accounts for their problems and actions. Interview data was collected from two institutions in a country participating in the Bologna Process. The results show that the educational…

Grading on the curve is a common practice in higher education. While there are many critics of the practice it still finds wide spread acceptance particularly in science classes. Advocates believe that in large classes student ability is likely to be normally distributed. If test scores are also normally distributed instructors and students tend…

This study addresses the response of social science and engineering science faculty to a naturally occurring sample of second language writing. Using a matched-guise protocol, faculty participants were led to believe that the one-page essay was produced by an international student whose first language was either Chinese or Spanish. The faculty…