Critics of the neoliberal university argue that grading undermines student learning. In this article, I survey the literature in order to ascertain whether such critiques are supported by pedagogical research. Investigating the relationship between grading and motivation, feedback, and autonomy, respectively, I conclude that grades most often do…

This descriptive study, modeled after Starch and Elliott's (1913b) study in which the researchers asked math teachers to grade a geometry test in an effort to explore grading disparities, similarly tasked high school math teachers with grading a geometry test. In this study, 95 participants scored a test based on their school and personal…

Writing proficiency has become a common student learning outcome at all types of higher education institutions across the United States. However, despite the consistent popularity of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) over the last few decades, most two-year institutions still have no formalized WAC program or training, and programs that are…

Teachers are among the most important inputs in the education production function. One mechanism by which teachers might affect student learning is through the grading standards they set for their classrooms. However, the effects of grading standards on student outcomes are relatively understudied. Using administrative data that links individual…

The University of Palermo is proud to host the 18th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM) in Palermo, Italy, from July 20 to July 23, 2025. EDM is the annual flagship conference of the International Educational Data Mining Society. This year's theme is "New Goals, New Measurements, New Incentives to Learn." The theme…

In the study presented in this article, the aim is to further the understanding regarding the differences between pupils (aged 15-16) from schools with low or high socio-economic status (SES), regarding the amount and diversity of content knowledge in history that they have acquired by the end of compulsory schooling. Following a definition of…

In this study, we analyzed student participation and success in a college-level Calculus I course that utilized standards-based grading. By measuring the level to which students participate in this class structure, we were able to use a clustering algorithm that revealed multiple groupings of students that were distinct based on activity…

Given the prominence of international instructors in higher education, understanding their grading practices is essential for informing college grading debates. This first large-scale assessment of undergraduate grading practices highlights how different demographic, classroom and departmental factors shape international instructors' grading…

In January of 2023, Georgia State University proposed a policy stating that, if graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) taught courses that reported grades of Ds, Fs, or withdrawals (DFW) at a rate of twenty percent or higher, GTAs would be required to complete a course on how to teach college students before they could resume their job as a teaching…

Pre-class preparation is a crucial component of team-based learning (TBL). Lack of preparation hinders both individual learning and team performance during TBL. The purpose of the present study was to explore how the grading of the individual readiness assurance test (iRAT) can affect pre-class preparation, iRAT performance and performance in the…

The author discusses valid and reliable ways to assign grades in an academic course in any discipline. "Validity" means the accuracy of a grade's reflection of student learning and achievement. "Reliability" concerns the degree of random error that might be present and affect validity. First the author defines a grade as a…

We investigated the relationship between the scores assigned by an Automated Essay Scoring (AES) system, the Intelligent Essay Assessor (IEA), and grades allocated by trained, professional human raters to English essay writing by instigating two procedures novel to written-language assessment: the logistic transformation of AES raw scores into…

Awarding gaps between various groups of students persist across the Higher Education sector, yet the responses designed to address the contributors remain localised. The sudden spread of COVID-19 led to various responses across the University sector creating an unprecedented natural experiment and offering the opportunity to compare outcomes from…

Much has been written in the grading literature regarding the continued use of traditional teacher grading practices that impede effective teaching and learning, yet teachers continue to assign grades using a mixture of factors. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore secondary teacher perceptions of their grading practices, the…

The American school system is funded, operated, and evaluated based on student academic achievement data that is generated by various assessment tools and grading practices. The most traditional grading practice, norm-referenced grading, assesses student academic achievement on a 100-point scale that is further broken into categorical levels (A-F)…