Developing of a Grading and Reporting System

• Achievement reports should be separate from effort expended
• Should be developed cooperatively (parents, students, school personnel) in order to ensure a more adequate and understandable system

Grading and Reporting System should be…

• based on clear statement of learning objectives
• consistent with school standards
• based on adequate assessment
• based on the right level of detail
• provided with parent-teacher conference

Assigning Letter Grades and Computing Grades

• Grades assigned to students must include only achievement
• If achievement and effort and combined in some way, grades would mean different things for different individuals
• Grades reflected on report cards are numbers or numerical quantities arrived at after several data on the students’ performance are combined

Types of Grading

1. Norm-Referenced Grading

• Reflects relative performance (i.e. score compared to other students)
• In this system,
• Grade (like a class rank) depends on what group the student is in, not just his own performance
• Typical grade may be shifted up or down, depending on group’s ability
• Widely-used because much classroom testing is norm-referenced

In norm-referenced grading….

• An outside person can decide which student in that group performed best 
• Takes into account circumstances beyond the student’s control such as poor teaching, bad tests etc. since these would affect all the students equally, so all performance would drop but relative standing would stay the same
• An outside evaluator has little additional information about what a student actually knows since this will vary with class
• Assumes sufficient variability among student performance that the difference in learning between them justifies giving different grades

2. Criterion-Referenced Grading

• Reflects absolute performance (i.e. score compared to specified performance standards)

In this system,

• Grade does not depend on what group the student is in, but only on his own performance compared to a set of performance standards
• Grading is a complex task because grades must clearly define the domain, justify the performance standards and be based on criterion-referenced assessment
• Conditions are hard to meet except in complete mastery learning settings

In criterion-referenced grading…

• An outside evaluator knows only that the student has reached a certain level or set of objectives
• The grade will always mean the same thing and will not vary from class to class
• Outside factors might influence the entire class and performance may drop
• No way to tell from the grading who the best students are, only that certain students have achieved certain levels
• Criteria are known from the beginning that allows student to take responsibility

3. Learning Ability or Improvement Performance Grading

• Reflects ability or improvement performance (i.e. score compared to learning potential or past performance 

In this system,

• Grade are inconsistent with a standard-based system because each child is his/her own standard
• Reliably estimating learning ability is very difficult 
• Cannot reliably measure change with classroom measures
• Should only be used as a supplement