Examining the grading practices of teachers Jennifer Randall a, * , George Engelhard b a University of Massachusetts,111 Thatcher Road, Hills South, Room 171, Amherst, MA 01003, USA b Emory University, 1784 N. Decatur Road, Suite 202, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA article info Article history: Received 9 June 2008 Received in revised form 9 March 2010 Accepted 18 March 2010 Keywords: Grading practices Grades abstract Despite the recommendations of some measurement specialists, teachers do not always assign grades based on achievement only. The primary purpose of this study is to clarify the meaning of grades, and to examine some of the factors teachers consider when assigning final grades with a focus on borderline cases. The sample consisted of 516 American public school teachers, selected via stratified random sample in a major metropolitan school district in the Southeast. A 53-item survey using Guttman’s mapping sentences, previously piloted in a separate school district, was created and distributed. Teachers were provided with scenarios that described student ability, achievement, behavior, and effort and the teacher was asked to assign both a numerical and letter grade. A four-way between-subjects ANOVA was conducted with the student characteristics ability, achievement, behavior, and effort as independent variables and final grade as the dependent variable. Findings demonstrate that teachers abided by the official grading policy of the participating school district assigning grades based primarily on achieve- ment under most circumstances, however, in some borderline cases teachers report considering non- achievement factors. Implications for pre-service and in-service professional development are discussed. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Most public school parents in the United States are satisfied with the quality of their community schools and the education their children receive (Rose & Gallup, 2007) despite the nation’s overall concern with low achievement. This unexpected satisfaction may be explained, in part, because parents rely primarily on teacher assigned grades when ascertaining the achievement of their chil- dren e and often, according to these grades their children are achieving well. Both international and national standardized assessments as well as college freshman performance, however, suggest otherwise. Do student grades represent actual student achievement? Most measurement textbooks, designed for both pre-service and in-service teachers, assert that they should. Linn and Miller (2005) write in their measurement textbook that “in the final analysis, letter grades should reflect the extent to which students have achieved the learning outcomes specified in the course objectives, and these should be weighted according to their relative importance” (p. 377). Brookhart contends, in her measurement textbook intended for classroom teachers, that the “primary purpose for grading e for both individual assignment grades and report card grades e should be to communicate with students and parents about their achievement of learning goals” (2004, p. 5). In other words, grades should only represent student achievement. Despite attempts to explain the appropriate uses of grades to teachers, Stanley and Baines (2001) assert that a student’s final grade does not always simply reflect academic performance. Instead, they argue, grades now serve a potpourri of inappropriate purposes including, but not limited to, self-esteem boosters, public relations, rewards, and vehicles to increase college funding for students. According to Brookhart (2004), teachers should feel free to assess factors other than achievement, but these factors e like attitude, participation, and effort e should not be graded. When final grades are composed of some combination of achievement, ability, behavior, and effort, problems may arise over the meaning of the grade. For instance, effort is a difficult construct to accurately measure. It could be demonstrated by homework completion, attendance, alertness, attentiveness, or a myriad of other variables. Moreover, low achieving students tend to get the benefit of “effort consideration” far more often than high achieving students. Linn and Miller (2005) also dispute the appropriateness of including other variables such as effort in the final grade. In addition to the difficulty inherent in measuring effort and the lack of fairness to students with higher ability, “it is difficult to distinguish between aptitude and achievement even with the most sophisticated measures, as both are dependent on student learning” (p. 377). * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 413 545 0227 (office); fax: þ1 413 545 1523. E-mail address: jrandall@educ.umass.edu (J. Randall). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Teaching and Teacher Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate 0742-051X/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2010.03.008 Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (2010) 1372e1380