DOC1 Chapter 12 Grading Systems, Marking, and Reporting

Composite Score

At the end of a marking term, you will need to combine assessment measure scores into a score that reflects each student's achievement throughout the term. This summative assessment score for the marking term is called a composite score. A composite score is created by combining two or more scores obtained from the assessment measures.

Score

It is important to differentiate a mark or a grade from a score. A score is assigned for a specific report, homework assignment, or test that is done while instruction is still taking place; this is formative assessment. Grades are used in summative assessment to represent the extent of the student's achievement and competence after instruction has occurred.

Assessment Measure

Grades should be valid measures of achievement. An assessment measure is the means by which a teacher gathers information about the students' achievement. Assessment measures include tests, quizzes, reports, homework, and other approaches. Tests and other assessment measures should actually measure student learning outcomes of the course objectives. Letter grades should reflect the extent to which students have achieved the learning objectives specified in the course objectives, and these should be weighted according to their relative importance.

Marks or Grades

are summative, numerical, or quasi-numerical symbols that represent a student's performance in a marking period or a course and become a part of the student's permanent records. The terms mark and grade are frequently used interchangeably.

Grade Book

includes three types of student behavior that teachers are usually expected to monitor and report: achievement, attendance, and conduct. Consequently, a grade book documents students' progress throughout the school year. While teaching assignments and information requirements vary, most teachers need a daily record of students' attendance and other information related to classroom management, a record of achievement scores, and a record of conduct scores.

Criterion-Referenced Standards

involves comparing a student's performance to prespecified standards set by the teacher, usually indicated in percentages of material learned. Setting criterion-referenced standards for grading is a matter of professional judgment. With this approach, you would select score ranges for A to F that reflect outstanding, very good, satisfactory, very weak, and unsatisfactory achievement. To some extent, this approach does involve comparisons with other individuals because standards have to be realistically set; they should be based on previous evidence of student performance. If the standards are set too high, many students will fail; if they are too low, students will achieve invalidly high grades. However, when preset standards are used, students do not compete with one another as they may when peer comparisons are made. The criterion-referenced system of grading is more complex than it first appears. To use an absolute level of achievement as a basis for grading requires that (a) the domain of learning tasks be clearly defined, (b) the standards of performance be clearly specified and justified, and (c) the measures of student achievement be criterion referenced

Norm-Referenced Standards

involves comparing a student's performance with that of a reference group, typically one's classmates. Therefore, the grade is determined by the student's relative ranking in the total group, rather than by some absolute standard of achievement. Because grading is based on relative performance, the grade is influenced by both the student's performance and the performance of the group.

Grading System

is the manner in which the students' achievement is reported. There are several commonly used grading systems, as discussed in the following sections. Regardless of the procedure used, you should inform your students of the grading system that you will be using and clearly describe what your grading procedures and requirements will be.

Daily Record

is used to document information about attendance, homework and classroom assignments, particular instances of conduct that you want to record, and other school matters. To prepare this section, select the information you will document, choose symbols that represent each type of information, create a legend for the symbols, list the class dates, and record the selected behaviors. A sample list of symbols for recording behaviors is shown in Table 12.2, along with an illustration of how to record these symbols in the daily log. The sample shown in Table 12.2 includes only symbols for negative behavior; teachers often include symbols for positive behavior as well.

Potential Standards

Grading students with respect to their potential involves several considerations: their apparent ability levels, their past performances, and the efforts they have made. Under the potential standards system, students receive high marks if they perform well relative to their apparent abilities, improve considerably, or appear to be making extensive efforts. Teachers often have difficulty in grading effectively using the potential standards method. Making reliable estimates of learning potential, with or without tests, is a challenging task because judgments of potential are likely to be contaminated by achievement to some unknown degree. It is also difficult to estimate improvement over a short span of time. Consequently, grades based on potential are not dependable due to the lack of reliability in judging achievement in relation to potential and due to problems in judging the degree of improvement.

Nonachievement Outcomes

In addition to reporting achievement, teachers are often expected to measure and report student conduct. Nonachievement outcomes involve student conduct in areas such as effort, study habits, attitude toward learning, and citizenship. Most commonly, the report card used by a school district will indicate the categories to be reported along with the manner in which the report will be made. Nonachievement outcomes typically reported include rating scales, checklists, and special reports; these same approaches may be used for recording achievement outcomes.

Cumulative Record File

The school maintains a cumulative record file for each student as a source of information for the teacher and families. The file for each student commonly contains one or more cumulative record cards recording the following information: (1) personal information (home address and telephone number, parents' names, parents' work addresses and phone numbers, the name of a person to contact in an emergency, and other useful background information); (2) information for each school year and in each subject area concerning the student's attendance, achievement (often including grades for each marking term, each semester, final exams, and final annual grades), nonachievement areas (often related to work habits, citizenship, and conduct); (3) the student's scores on various achievement tests and other standardized tests taken over the years he or she has been in school; (4) health; and (5) honors or participation in special activities. In addition, the cumulative record file often includes information about specially scheduled parent-teacher conferences and other anecdotal information.