In this study, we analyzed student participation and success in a college-level Calculus I course that utilized standards-based grading. By measuring the level to which students participate in this class structure, we were able to use a clustering algorithm that revealed multiple groupings of students that were distinct based on activity…

Given the prominence of international instructors in higher education, understanding their grading practices is essential for informing college grading debates. This first large-scale assessment of undergraduate grading practices highlights how different demographic, classroom and departmental factors shape international instructors' grading…

In January of 2023, Georgia State University proposed a policy stating that, if graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) taught courses that reported grades of Ds, Fs, or withdrawals (DFW) at a rate of twenty percent or higher, GTAs would be required to complete a course on how to teach college students before they could resume their job as a teaching…

Pre-class preparation is a crucial component of team-based learning (TBL). Lack of preparation hinders both individual learning and team performance during TBL. The purpose of the present study was to explore how the grading of the individual readiness assurance test (iRAT) can affect pre-class preparation, iRAT performance and performance in the…

The author discusses valid and reliable ways to assign grades in an academic course in any discipline. "Validity" means the accuracy of a grade's reflection of student learning and achievement. "Reliability" concerns the degree of random error that might be present and affect validity. First the author defines a grade as a…

We investigated the relationship between the scores assigned by an Automated Essay Scoring (AES) system, the Intelligent Essay Assessor (IEA), and grades allocated by trained, professional human raters to English essay writing by instigating two procedures novel to written-language assessment: the logistic transformation of AES raw scores into…

Awarding gaps between various groups of students persist across the Higher Education sector, yet the responses designed to address the contributors remain localised. The sudden spread of COVID-19 led to various responses across the University sector creating an unprecedented natural experiment and offering the opportunity to compare outcomes from…

Much has been written in the grading literature regarding the continued use of traditional teacher grading practices that impede effective teaching and learning, yet teachers continue to assign grades using a mixture of factors. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore secondary teacher perceptions of their grading practices, the…

The American school system is funded, operated, and evaluated based on student academic achievement data that is generated by various assessment tools and grading practices. The most traditional grading practice, norm-referenced grading, assesses student academic achievement on a 100-point scale that is further broken into categorical levels (A-F)…

In the three essays which compose this dissertation, I use econometric tools to examine the relationships between various measures of school context and teachers' practice. I first study how a literacy curriculum intervention affects elementary teachers' advice seeking networks and how these advice seeking relationships moderate the impact of…

Objectives: Automatic assessment systems are widely used to provide rapid feedback for students and reduce grading time. Despite the benefits of increased efficiency and improved pedagogical outcomes, an ongoing challenge is mitigating poor student behaviors when interacting with automatic assessment systems including numerous submissions,…

This paper is in conversation with Dyer (2023). Grading and assessment are integrated elements of 21st-century higher education with many viewpoints, and the two papers are two of these perspectives. In this paper, I present a course structure that focuses on scaffolding with student empowerment, growth, and success at the forefront of the design.…

Students may not always be intrinsically motivated to complete learning activities in our courses. For these instances, we suggest taking advantage of heuristics, discovered through behavioral economics research, as one way to nudge students toward task completion. To date, most educational applications of behavioral economics' heuristics use…

When contemplating the introduction of mastery grading into the classroom, a fear of student resistance can prevent the implementation entirely. However, by taking a proactive stance against student resistance, instructors can give mastery grading the best chance of being successful. This paper focuses on the ways in which the instructor can…

Many colleges and universities nationwide use midterm grades to provide feedback to students about their academic performance at the midpoint of a course. In recent years, registrars have been challenged to collect accurate midterm grades. Numerous factors contribute to the challenge of collecting accurate assessments. This constellation of…