Grading and Student Evaluation

Base grades on student achievement, and achievement only. Grades should represent the extent to which the intended learning outcomes were achieved by students. They should not be contaminated by student effort, tardiness, misbehavior, and other extraneous factors. . . . If they are permitted to become part of the grade, the meaning of the grade as an indicator of achievement is lost.

Gronlund (1998)

Guidelines for grading and evaluation

1. Develop an informed, comprehensive personal philosophy of grading that is consistent with your philosophy of teaching and evaluation.
2. Ascertain an institution's philosophy of grading, and, unless otherwise negotiated, conform to that philosophy (so that you are not out of step with others).
3. Design tests that conform to appropriate institutional and cultural expectations of the difficulty that students should experience.
4. Select appropriate criteria for grading and their relative weighting in calculating grades.
5. Communicate criteria for grading to students at the beginning of the course and at subsequent grading periods (mid-term, final).
6. Triangulate letter grade evaluations with alternatives that are more formative and that give more washback.

When you assign a letter grade to a student, that letter should be symbolic of your approach to teaching. If you believe that a grade should recognize only objectively scored performance on a final exam, it may indicate that your approach to teaching rewards end products only, not process. If you base some portion of a final grade on improvement, behavior, effort, motivation, and/or punctuality, it may say that your philosophy of teaching values those affective elements.

You might be one of those teachers who feel that grades are a necessary nuisance and that substantive evaluation takes place through the daily work of optimizing washback in your classroom.

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Grading and Student Evaluation

Further reading :
Brown, D. (2004). Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices. New York: Pearson Longman.