Clymer, JB; Wiliam, D; Clymer, JB; (2007) Improving the way we grade science. Educational Leadership , 64 (4) pp. 36-42.

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Abstract

Imagine, for a moment, a school that has an eight-week marking period, with students receiving a grade each week. Lesley starts out with fourAs but ends up with fourCs. Overall, of course, she gets aB. Chris, on the other hand, starts out with fourCs but ends up with four As. He gets aB too. But who has learned more? In terms of overall achievement, Chris, with his four final As, seems to have mastered the content for the marking period and really deserves anA. Conversely, Lesley, with her four finalCs, seems far from mastering the content, but she gets a B because of her good start. The fact is that our current grading practices don't do the one thing they are meant to do, which is to provide an accurate indication of student achievement. What the Research Shows Within the last few years, research studies from around the world have shown that assessment can help students learn science, as well as measure how much science they have learned (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Wiliam, Lee, Harrison, & Black, 2004). Research has also suggested that the use of formative assessment, or assessment for learning, can double the rate of student learning (Wiliam & Thompson, in press). Perhaps more remarkable, such improvements have occurred even when achievement is measured using standardized tests. To be effective, however, assessmentfor learning must be integrated into assessmentof learning systems. In the United States, this means that in addition to taking into account fluctuations in student learning, teachers must still assign grades. Consequently, educators need to develop and implement a system that supports both the formative and summative functions of assessment—formative, in that teachers can use evidence of student achievement to adjust instruction to better meet student learning needs; and summative, in that teachers can amass the information to provide a final grade for a marking period. Some years back, Terry Crooks (1988) reviewed more than 240 studies of the effect of assessment practices on students. He concluded that using assessment for grading purposes had completely overshadowed using assessment to support student learning. A more recent review of studies conducted between 1988 and 1997 found that nothing had improved (Black & Wiliam, 1998). Indeed, considerable evidence showed that many common grading practices actually lowered student performance.

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