In the first part, the paper considers the impacts of external examination on learning and school lessons. Numerous researches and analyses have shown that students from specialized high schools retain incomplete, shallow and often completely incorrect ideas about some natural and social phenomena. They do not know how to connect the knowledge…

This research study, undertaken across a department, presents the results of two focus groups in which twenty undergraduate students offer their views on participation assessment and its underlying goal of student engagement. Barriers to fairly assessing participation are discussed along with their solutions. Assessing participation, though, isn't…

At the Medical College of Wisconsin, a procedure was developed to allow computerized grading and grade reporting of laboratory practical examinations in the Clinical Human Anatomy course. At the start of the course, first year medical students were given four Lists of Structures. On these lists, numbered items were arranged alphabetically; the…

This article presents pragmatic information on teaching early childhood teacher candidates how to assess children's inquiry process skills. The authors list three important steps in choosing inquiry skills. They generated behavioral indicators for each inquiry skill, and designed an assessment rubric using number grading or a…

Assigning a grade to students' class contribution may be 1 of the most controversial and difficult challenges that instructors face. The authors examine the perceived fairness of class contribution grading methods from the perspective of the performance appraisal literature. In 2 scenario studies based on actual grading techniques, the authors…

This paper provides an overview of the issue of student anonymity in the summative assessment of student work in higher education. It considers both theoretical literature pertaining to bias in the evaluation of the work of others and the limited empirical work undertaken on this issue in higher education. It then describes the experience of three…

It is imperative that school administrators understand the rights of parents and students as guaranteed by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). School personnel should know the rights of parents and students regarding access to education records and understand the restrictions of disclosure. Educational leaders must balance the…

Characteristics of university courses and student engagement were examined in relation to student ratings of instruction. The Universal Student Ratings of Instruction instrument was administered to students at the end of every course at a major Canadian university over a three-year period. Using a two-step analytic procedure, a latent variable…

This investigation examined the course experiences of Bachelor of Education Primary students across each year of the course. The aims of the study were to identify gaps in what we know about our students; to identify relevant domains in student experiences and to assist with course improvements. A reflective inquiry paradigm was adopted for…

Each school year, the School Climate Survey is administered to gather information on the perceptions that students, their parents, and school staffs hold concerning their schools and their performance. In 2009-2010, the survey was distributed to approximately 85,000 parents, 45,000 elementary, secondary, and adult students, and 25,000 staff. This…

An analysis of the pass-withdraw (P-W) option open to students in lieu of a letter grade (A,B,C,D,F) was made at Metropolitan Community College, using data drawn from the fall quarter, 1971, and winter quarter, 1975. Letter grades carried grade points while P-W did not, no academic credit was given for W, and students could take the P-W option in…

The purpose of the present study is to examine the effects of nontraditional satisfactory/unsatisfactory (or pass/fail) grading on graduate admissions and on financial award decisions by surveying each department offering graduate programs at the State University of New York at Albany. Some differential effects of the nontraditional versus…

Five short essays on grading systems by a professor, an associate dean, an undergraduate student, a writer-sociologist, and a graduate student. (JT)

Without a change in grading practices, elective English programs can become simply old programs with new names. (JH)