Of the many issues facing higher education, perhaps none has been more frequently and hotly debated by college administrators, instructors, and students, than the issue of college grading purposes and practices. Regretably, much of the research to date has been poorly done and hence has led to few changes. The purpose of this research was to…

A study conducted at Alma College to determine how and why grade inflation occurred is discussed. Grade inflation is seen as being caused by many factors including calendar changes, requirement reductions, better defined grading scales, and shifts in faculty attitudes. (MLW)

This essay responds to Jane Danielewicz's and Peter Elbow's recent piece on contract grading in "College Composition and Communication" (December 2009). I discuss the similarities of their approach to my own contract process, finding that we share a quantitative/performative method for grading. I also explore our differences. While they guarantee…

In 2005, the undergraduate advisory committee at the University of Toronto Mississauga found that across all disciplines, writing proficiency was the skill weakness that generated the greatest concern. Students reported that they often found writing tasks intimidating, and suggested that effective feedback and guidance would improve their writing.…

Reader-friendly and practical, Rigor is NOT a Four-Letter Word is filled with tools you can use every day to raise the level of rigor in your classroom. These strategies can be incorporated immediately across content areas, grades, and subjects. Barbara Blackburn clearly defines what rigor is and how individual teachers can provide challenging…

It has been reported that students learn best when they use a wide variety of techniques to understand the information of the discipline, be it visual, auditory, discussion with others, metacognition, hands-on activities, or writing about the subject. We report in this article the use of academic journals not only as an aid for students to learn…

Multiple intelligences, with its hypothesis and implementation, have ascended to a prominent status among the many instructional methodologies. Meanwhile, pedagogical theories and concepts are in need of more alternative and interactive assessments to prove their prevalence (Kinugasa, Yamashita, Hayashi, Tominaga, & Yamasaki, 2005). In general,…

Recently, more and more researchers have been exploring uses of mobile technology that support new instructional strategies. Based on research findings related to peer and self assessment, this study developed a Mobile Assessment Participation System (MAPS) using Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) as the platform. In addition, the study proposes…

Staff development is very significant for the achievement of overall goals of higher education in Pakistan. The success of innovations depends largely upon the skills of instructors; but in Pakistan, the people with a simple masters degree (without any pedagogical training) are inducted as teaching staff at the university level, so it is time to…

This article analyzes a social statistics class that engaged in self-grading. Students liked self-grading because they identified their own mistakes, it reinforced what they learned, and they received immediate feedback. Some students worried that others would cheat, but this assertion was not confirmed in the data and the possibility of cheating…

Studies on the effect of cooperative learning have demonstrated its efficacy in improving the cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes of schooling. However, it remains unclear what forms of cooperation are especially effective in multilingual contexts. This research examines the connection between positive goal interdependence and positive resource…

The effect of using zeros in grading students is reviewed, focusing on the inordinate weight given to zeros due to unequal intervals. Several approaches are suggested as practical solutions that balance the statistical properties inherent in averaging unequal grade intervals with the teacher's desire to use zeros for academic work. These include…

The use of the stanine scale to control some of the sources of error in converting letter grades to a numerical scale before they can be added or averaged is described. (Author/RK)

This study investigated the effects of the use of piles on the reliability and level of theme grades; and the effects of the number of grading categories on the reliability and level of theme grades, awarded to undergraduate English compositions. (CS)