This qualitative case study explored how grading can be used to support learning by analyzing the implementation of a skills-based grading system in a high school English department. Black and Wiliam's (2018) model for assessment in relation to pedagogy was used as a lens through which to examine the relationship between the grading system and…

Nationwide, many students fail to complete the key mathematics courses that are required for most STEM majors, including Precalculus. This paper describes the rationale, implementation, and impact of the redesign of Precalculus at one regional west coast institution. Prior to the redesign, pass rates in Precalculus were modest (75.8% of all…

Big events lead to big changes. The COVID-19 pandemic and the shutdown of normal life have been devastating--in lives lost; long-term health effects; unemployment; and copious doses of anxiety and mental health problems, to name a few after-effects. Despite the challenges, however--or perhaps because of them--the author believes there will be…

Purpose: Existing research suggests that students' attitudes toward physical education are positive through Grade 5, but become less positive as grade levels increase; this research is, however, missing student voice. The purpose of this study was to further understand why students' attitudes have been shown to decrease. Methods: Twenty-six focus…

With a strong movement of schools starting to use standards-based grading practices, one of the aims of this study was to learn if traditional grading practices communicate grades that are accurate based on the students' learning of the course objectives. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which employability and homework…

While integrated STEAM education has been shown to support the cultivation of critical global competencies, teachers have identified classroom assessment as a key barrier to facilitating integrated learning. This research investigated how exemplary teachers navigated classroom assessment challenges and practices within integrated STEAM education…

The rate of transition to online instruction in higher education was accelerated by the new reality of the global pandemic, COVID-19. As a result, faculty must adapt by being more efficient to manage more students with less resources and even less personal contact for the foreseeable future. Efficiency can be gained by using group assignments and…

Assessment is an essential part of teaching and learning, but too often it leads to misleading conclusions--sometimes with dire consequences for students. How can educators improve assessment practices so that the results are accurate, meaningful, informative, and fair? Educator and best-selling author Myron Dueck draws from his firsthand…

Open-ended questions in mathematics are commonly used by teachers to monitor and assess students' deeper conceptual understanding of content. Student answers to these types of questions often exhibit a combination of language, drawn diagrams and tables, and mathematical formulas and expressions that supply teachers with insight into the processes…

A conflict exists because all South Carolinian students are held to the same college- and career-readiness expectations, yet upstate school districts have opted to implement different grading policies. While the three Research Districts featured in this study employed varied forms of 50 as a minimum grade, other districts have no such mathematical…

Teachers have aligned their instruction to the Common Core Standards and have developed several essential questions to help drive their instruction. However, grading and reporting practices remain the same. Teachers are still communicating student achievement the traditional way. Traditional grading practices do not communicate what a student is…

Bribery is a complex and critical issue in higher education (HE), causing severe economic and societal harm. Traditionally, most scholarship on HE corruption has focused on institutional factors in developing countries and insights into the psychological and motivational factors that drive HE bribery on the micro-level mechanisms are virtually…

In this article, I report on examiners' views and experiences of using Pairwise Comparative Judgement (PCJ) and Rank Ordering (RO) as alternatives to traditional analytical marking for GCSE English Language essays. Fifteen GCSE English Language examiners took part in the study. After each had judged 100 pairs of essays using PCJ and eight packs of…

This sequential mixed-methods study investigates washback on learning in a high-stakes school exit examination by examining learner perceptions and reported behaviours in relation to learners' beliefs and language learning experience, the role of other stakeholders in the washback mechanism, and socio-educational forces. The focus is the graded…

Assessment has been identified as an ongoing problem in physical education (PE). Since the student perspective on assessment is often neglected in research, in this paper, we will report on a study that explored students' experiences of assessment in the Swedish school subject physical education and health (PEH). In particular, the aim of this…