{"id":2456,"date":"2008-12-17T09:31:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T09:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/?p=2456"},"modified":"2026-10-20T08:55:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T08:55:48","slug":"grading-or-assessing-learning-seasonal-thoughts-for-reflection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/?p=2456","title":{"rendered":"Grading or Assessing Learning?\u00a0Seasonal Thoughts for Reflection!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Originally published on:<\/strong> December 17, 2008<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The examination period is upon us.\u00a0 Students are anxious and faculty contemplate the \u201cburden\u201d of marking! The Registrar prepares to receive the grades and all students graduating or otherwise are calculating their respective GPAs and seeking to improve them.\u00a0All this activity takes place at the end of each semester on each and every university campus the world over.\u00a0What is its purpose and why do we give it pride of place in academia?\u00a0In what sense if any does it relate to the primary objective of academic institutions, namely learning? Does the GPA or the letter grade awarded to a student reflect learning or for that matter any form of objective assessment and\/or evaluation of what a student gained in terms of the other key objectives of higher education: critical thinking, self-learning skills, ability to work in groups, understanding key issues in a particular discipline, etc.?\u00a0Current pedagogic research argues forcefully that the answer is a clear \u201cNO\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 So why do we keep on doing it and devoting so much time and energy on the part of both students, faculty and administrators?\u00a0The answer is simple:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although faculty may find grading too subjective and difficult to justify, our students \u201cworship\u201d the grade! Furthermore, and possibly of even greater importance, employers seek graduates with high GPAs!  Graduate schools rely heavily on GPAs and SATs.  Parents, who pay fees or otherwise, await anxiously the end of semester grades of their respective offspring\u2019s and  the list can go on\u2026 Grading has constituted a cornerstone of academic assessment for decades. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, no single system has gained universal acceptance and both faculty and universities are continuously experimenting with alternatives.\u00a0Educational research continues to explore and ponder ways in which faculty can improve the way they telescope<\/em><\/strong> a variety of assessments during an entire semester into a letter grade or number.\u00a0Similar research questions whether such an enterprise is at all possible or fruitful.\u00a0In fact a number of reputable <\/em>liberal-arts colleges<\/a> in the U.S. either do not issue grades at all or de-emphasize them. In all cases, the rationale is that grades often do not provide a clear picture of academic aptitude or of potential for success, and that learning, not achieving the highest score, should be the goal of a liberal education. <\/em>(Wikipedia)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, and irrespective of what took place during the semester in the classroom, faculty and students Part Company at the end of the semester and become \u201cantagonists\u201d.\u00a0Faculty see examinations as part of a process of learning.\u00a0For students, examinations themselves are the process.\u00a0Faculty see the need to award a letter grade as a necessary chore required by the institution.\u00a0 Students, on the other hand, perceive grades as the sole and key indicator reflecting all of their accomplishments during a semester of learning.\u00a0 Faculty see grading as an \u201cobjective\u201d assessment of student performance during the semester.\u00a0Students see the grade clinically and ascribe all failings to the \u201csadistic\u201d nature of faculty.\u00a0 The list of conflicting and opposing perceptions held by faculty and students with regard to the grade and the grading process can be as long as a piece of string!\u00a0Thus, once again, we ask ourselves why do we engage in such an activity?\u00a0The answer, again, is simple: educational institutions, faculty and administrators continue to confuse grading<\/em><\/strong> with assessment.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assessment of student performance does not and should not place value or judgment upon it.\u00a0 Assessment is simply a reporting of a student\u2019s profile of achievements.\u00a0Assessment is in fact akin to a baseball or soccer card that lists the batting average, the goals scored, runs batted in, penalties saved, without placing a value on the performance.\u00a0In order to place value and\/or evaluate performance we need to engage in a very different exercise.\u00a0We need to consider if the player is a rookie, if the player played in a first or third division league, etc.\u00a0In other words a low batting average may in fact be a highly valued average if we consider the player is a rookie.\u00a0Thus, the wider context within which performance is evaluated needs to be incorporated in our final decision to attribute a letter grade (value).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such it becomes very clear to all that grading and assessment are very different species and each have their own and very distinctive pedigrees.\u00a0Examinations are forms of assessment while what we report to the Registrar is grades.\u00a0Thus, we need to ask ourselves: what is it that enables us to translate academic and scholarly performance during a semester into a value judgment?\u00a0 What additional considerations and criteria do we take into account in order to avoid spurious value judgments that reflect our own biases rather than some degree of objective value system?\u00a0The answers, of course, are very complex and numerous.\u00a0Different disciplines and even different departments will have their own internal and agreed upon rubrics or \u201cunderstandings\u201d that enable them to award grades that mean something in that discipline or department.\u00a0The analogy with the rookie and the batting average is critical here.\u00a0 How do we evaluate (value) a batting average of .280 for a rookie? It may be low as batting averages go, but may in fact be more than sufficient for a major league team to sign that player.\u00a0 It is the context within which value is attributed that is critical for all of us to make sense of grades.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, therefore, this is but one small attempt to appeal for a reform of the way in which we attribute grades at the end of each semester and thus remove both the anxiety and the antagonisms that emerge at this time of the year.\u00a0Let us consider, for example, ways in which letter grades can be accompanied by discipline-based or department-based rubrics and narratives that enable students, their parents and fellow faculty members in other departments and\/or schools to make sense of this mystique laden letter grade and GPA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published on: December 17, 2008 The examination period is upon us.\u00a0 Students are anxious and faculty contemplate the \u201cburden\u201d of marking! The Registrar prepares … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":3087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,172],"tags":[155],"class_list":["post-2456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-assessment-strategies","category-volume-8","tag-issue-7"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/20091209_AUC_344.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2456"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3096,"href":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions\/3096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learnhub.aucegypt.edu\/cltnewsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}