Have you ever, in the midst of setting assessment tasks and marking, thought about what role these tasks and marks play in producing lifelong learners and critical thinking graduates (Ajjawi & Boud, 2024)? Do they actually tell us what and how our students are learning beyond the exam context?
Universities use marks for many reasons, including admission to courses, selecting students for scholarship positions and readiness for graduation. Generally, most marks are used in a summative fashion, using criteria to compare student learning at the end of a topic or subject. From a student perspective, criteria based marks, used summatively, are a very blunt way of showing how they are performing in a subject, with no specific information about specific areas of strength or weakness.
The message that students receive through the grading system is that the mark, rather than the learning, is what is valued. This can contribute to students focusing on grades alone, rather than strengthening their learning and skills. Evidence suggests that grading systems increase student anxiety and may reduce cognitive energy that should be allocated to developing skills and a knowledge base (Chamberlin, Yasué, & Chiang, 2023). But when we consider the ‘ungrading’ movement that is evident in other universities, what do we need to consider about our courses and our university in particular (Beason-Abmayr, 2024; Blum & Kohn, 2020)?
Considering assessments and learning cannot be complete without think about the role of feedback, but when feedback and grades are connected, things become even more complicated (Winstone & Boud, 2022).
The aim of this roundtable is to take some time for blue sky thinking. Should we consider removing grades and marks from our subjects/courses? How might we better support student learning and how do we know that students are ready to graduate? What do we do with feedback? What would we like to do with feedback?
Issues/questions/ideas for exploration and discussion
*What role does feedback currently play in our subjects/courses?
*What processes we need to have in place, beyond providing marks, to develop confidence that
oOur students are developing skills and knowledge bases needed for graduation and working in the relevant fields, and
oOur students are learning how to judge and adjust the quality of their own work appropriately (Jorre de St Jorre, Boud, & Johnson, 2021)
References
Ajjawi, R., & Boud, D. (2024). Changing representations of student achievement: The need for innovation. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 61(3), 597-607. doi:10.1080/14703297.2023.2192513
Beason-Abmayr, B. (2024). Does ungrading promote student engagement and learning in Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs)? Physiology 39(S1). doi:10.1152/physiol.2024.39.S1.695
Blum, S. D., & Kohn, A. (2020). Ungrading : why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead) (First edition. ed.). Morgantown, West Virginia: West Virginia University Press.
Chamberlin, K., Yasué, M., & Chiang, I.-C. A. (2023). The impact of grades on student motivation. Active learning in higher education, 24(2), 109-124. doi:10.1177/1469787418819728
Jorre de St Jorre, T., Boud, D., & Johnson, E. D. (2021). Assessment for distinctiveness: recognising diversity of accomplishments. Studies in Higher Education, 46(7), 1371-1382. doi:10.1080/03075079.2019.1689385
Winstone, N. E., & Boud, D. (2022). The need to disentangle assessment and feedback in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 47(3), 656-667. doi:10.1080/03075079.2020.1779687
