Grading System BEd notes first year.pptx

B.Ed notes

1. Grading System in Education Dr. Sanjay Kumar Pandagale

2. INTRODUCTION Examination is the most crucial component of the 'teaching learning process. The general practice in the existing examinations is that the students are assessed by assigning marks to their answer scripts. Assigning numerical marks to students suffers from various types of flaws and need reforms. One of the reforms suggested is to use grading system instead of marking system.

3. LIMITATIONS OF MARKING SYSTEM Examination system awards marks to the answer scripts. In a 100 marks test score from 0 to 100 is possible. T hus, 101 units of measurement are theoretically possible . This type of scoring is often called as 101 point scale.

4. LIMITATIONS OF MARKING SYSTEM A score of 33 is superior to a score of 32 . 33 is ‘pass’ score whereas 32 is ‘fail’ . Such type of interpretation cannot be justified due to the following reasons: Our natural perception about quality of any thing is qualitative rather than quantitative and it is often represented in terms of adjectives like good, bad, excellent etc. rather than 32 and 33. Many of the human traits cannot and should not be measured in quantitative terms and therefore all learning outcomes cannot be assessed by adopting marking system. Though marks are considered as absolute and precise measure of a student’s performance but in reality, they are merely an estimation of a student’s performance.

5. Point 01 There is lot of variation in marking by different examiners. Empirical studies point out that error in marking of 55 percent of examinees was between 5 to 7 percent and 'when photocopies of the same answer scripts were sent to 90 experienced examiners, the average marks awarded to the 10 scripts ranged from 8 to 22 out of 50. Explanation Marks in different subjects are based on different scales. Some subjects are considered as high scoring subjects whereas some are not. It is quite possible to award a score of 0 or even 100 in a script of Mathematics while getting 100 marks in a test of a language or social studies is almost impossible and therefore even if we adopt a 101 point scale in all the subjects, the actual scoring range for set of one examinees may be 0 to 100 whereas for others it may be only 20-80 or so. Therefore , the scores are not equitable and should not be added up to get an overall index of a student's level of achievement, otherwise it may lead to various types of physical and emotional problems/stresses among the examinees. Marks obtained in different years in the same courses of study are also not the true measure of students' level of achievement or

6. Point 01 proficiency in the course because of the varying standard of question papers in different years. In many of the public examinations, there is a provision of grace marks. Grace marks are arbitrarily decided quantum of marks, which can be distributed to one or more subjects to change the status of a student with the addition of marks (from fail to compartment, from compartment to pass and so on). Thus, grace marks benefit the borderline cases by changing their status. This has been called as 'contamination of marks' and this reduces them to the figures, which are fake, fabricated and false. There are some strong reservations to call marks as a true measurement of the level of performance of students. It is merely an estimation of the performance and many times, it becomes a fabricated and false measure. Marking cannot be considered as a true and precise measure of the levels of student's performance.

7. WHAT IS GRADING? In grading, students are placed in ability bands that represent ranges of scores. Each ability band may be designated with a letter, which is called a 'grade.‘ It is a process of classifying students into different categories based on pre-defined standard and representing each category by a specific letter. Ex. In a group of 100 students, 10 of them got scores of 75 and above, 18 got scores between 60 and 74, 20 obtained scores between 50 and 59, 34 students scored between 30 and 49, and 18 obtained scores between 0 and 29. We may assign grades A, B, C, D and E to these groups as given below : Scores No. of Students Grades Category Description 75 and above 10 A Outstanding 60-74 14 B Very Good 50-59 24 C Good 30-49 34 D Average 0-29 18 E Below Average

8. DIRECT AND INDIRECT GRADING Direct grading: In co-scholastic areas, learning outcome in terms of attitudes, values, interests, etc. may not be assessed precisely in quantitative terms and thus it is desirable to assess these qualitatively using observations and experiences gathered through interaction with the students. If the assessment is reported by assigning letter grades, like A for 'outstanding', B for 'very good', C for 'good', D for 'satisfactory' and F for' unsatisfactory‘, the method is known as direct grading . This method can be used for grading both cognitive and non-cognitive learning outcomes. But normally used when the number of questions or testing situations are few and the number of examinees are also few . Merits: it minimizes the inter-examiner variability and it is easier to use when compared with other methods of grading. However , direct grading lacks objectivity and precision and also diagnostic value.

9. DIRECT AND INDIRECT GRADING Indirect grading: When we assess students' performance in test in quantitative terms (i.e. in terms of marks) and then convert it into letter grades by using different modes. This type of grading is known as 'indirect grading '. It is generally used in the following situations: When the number of subjects (examinees) is large. Learning outcomes can be assessed in terms of marks. Subjects have appeared in a public examination.

10. ABSOLUTE GRADING When grades are assigned based on predefined standard (level of performance) and each grade is associated with a fixed performance regardless of the distribution of grades ultimately assigned in the class it is known as absolute grading . Here the categories are made based on the existing conventional standard, which is generally followed in our public examinations, and the criterion for making such categories is arbitrary.

11. ABSOLUTE GRADING Nine categories or nine-point grading:

12. ABSOLUTE GRADING Limitations of Absolute Grading: Absolute grading cannot be used to know the comparative performance of a student in different subjects. For example, the distribution of marks in Mathematics may be 0 to 100 where as in English it may be 20 to 70 and therefore in one subject many students may get very high grade whereas none may get very high grade in another. Hence, when a student gets same grades in two subjects they may not be equivalent. It is based on face value of measured scores and therefore ignores the error of measurement. The cut-offs to define standard for making categories are arbitrarily decided, therefore, they do not have any scientific basis.

13. ABSOLUTE GRADING The criterion-referenced evaluation uses the following steps: Defining and delimiting the domain of learning tasks to be achieved. Defining the instructional objectives in behavioural terms. Identifying the standard of performance to be attained. Measuring the intended outcomes with a criterion referenced instrument . Then the students' performance may be assigned letter grades in terms of the degree to which the objectives have been attained. Letter Grade Specification A Outstanding: Student who has mastered all the major and minor objectives of the course. B Very Good: Student who has mastered the entire major and most of the minor objectives. C Satisfactory: Student who has mastered all the major objectives but only a few minor. D Weak: Student who has mastered just a few major and minor objectives needed for next higher level of instruction. E Under satisfactory: Student who has failed to achieve any major instructional objectives .

14. RELATIVE GRADING Most of our decisions are based on the relative position of a student in terms of his/her level of achievement in relation to others. This type of evaluation is often known as norm referenced evaluation. In this evaluation, we rank the student in a group based on his/her relative level of achievement. The grades, generally known as relative grades or norm-referenced grades may be assigned in such a situation. For this method of grading, a decision is made in advance about approximately what percentage or proportion of students would be awarded a particular letter grade based on their relative performance.

15. RELATIVE GRADING For example, a decision may be made that top 10% to 20% of the students will be assigned A grade and so on, as given below: Grade Relative Performance A Highest 10% to 20% of students B Higher 20% to 30% of students C Next 30% to 50% of students D Lower 10% to 20% of students E Lowest 0% to 10% of students

16. RELATIVE GRADING Grading on the Curve: Norm Referenced Grading: The most common method of grading is that of assigning grades based on a normal curve. That is why this type of grading is often called as grading on the curve. The normal curve has certain characteristics as follows: The curve is symmetrical around its vertical axis called ordinate and is asymptotic (expends from - ∞ to + ∞). For the same distance above and below the mean, same percentage of cases lie and it is always fixed if the distance is measured in standard deviation unit. Keeping in view the above two characteristics we may divide the curve into a desired number of parts each representing a specific category having relative ranking in terms of level of achievement. For example, we may make the five categories on the curve as shown below:

17. RELATIVE GRADING Grading on the Curve: Norm Referenced Grading: We may assign A. B, C, D, and E to these five categories as shown-

18. RELATIVE GRADING Grading on the Curve: Norm Referenced Grading: Similarly, the curve may be divided into seven or nine parts .

19. RELATIVE GRADING Merits of Relative Grading: Relative system is based on the assumption that achievement is normally distributed and a grade assigned to a particular student reflects his/her position in the group in terms of his/her level of achievement. In one subject, he/she may be assigned D after obtaining 35 marks where as in other subject he/she may be assigned E for scoring the same and therefore no grade signifies the failure of a student. Thus, the negative effect of pass and fail is completely eliminated by adopting this grading system. This grading provides the relative position of different students in a group that is why it can be used for comparative judgments as required in norms referenced testing. Difficulty level of the test does not effect this type of grading because it is based on the judgments of comparative performance. Since this grading is on the normal curve, comparability across the curricular areas is easily possible. Undue emphasis on raw score is minimized. Inter examiner variations are also minimized through this grading .

20. RELATIVE GRADING Limitations of Relative Grading: If the group is small, the assumption about normality of distribution of achievement is an unrealistic assumption. In such a situation, it is better to evolve other criteria for assigning grades. This may be done by evolving consensus among teachers in a school or school complex. It fails to provide the level of achievement of any student in absolute term.

21. GRADING STUDENTS' PERFORMANCE IN DIFFERENT TYPES OF QUESTIONS 1. Grading Performance in Objective Type Question (Fixed Response Question ): When the question is objective type it has only two types of responses, one is wholly correct whereas all others are completely wrong. Thus, it can be graded only on two-point scale: 1 for correct and 0 (zero) for wrong response. The combined grade in a test of such questions may be calculated by using the following formula on a nine-point scale where scale value range from 0 to 8 . Suppose, in a test, a student attempted 15 correct out of 20 questions then his/her combined grade value will be 6 and grade assigned will be C. Grade A B C D E F G H I Grade Value 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1  

22. GRADING STUDENTS' PERFORMANCE IN DIFFERENT TYPES OF QUESTIONS 2 . Grading Performance in Free Response Questions ): 2.1: Grading performance in essay type questions: The combined grade in essay type questions may be calculated by using the following formula : Suppose there are five essay type questions and a students get B, C, D, E, and A, on a nine-point scale (scale value 0-8) in these questions. Then the grade value for these five grades are 7,6,5,4 and 8 respectively .  

23. GRADING STUDENTS' PERFORMANCE IN DIFFERENT TYPES OF QUESTIONS 2.2 : Grading performance in short answer type questions: The performance in this type of questions is generally graded on five or three point scale. The grade value and grade on a five-point scale may be as- Grade Grade value Description A 4 Outstanding B 3 Very Good C 2 Average D 1 Marginal E 0 Poor  

24. GRADING STUDENTS' PERFORMANCE IN DIFFERENT TYPES OF QUESTIONS 2.2 : Grading performance in short answer type questions: Suppose if there are 10 short answer questions and they are graded as B, A, C, D, C, E, B, B, C, and E, their corresponding numerical grade value on a five point scale (0-4) will be 3, 4, 2, 1, 2, 0, 3, 3, 2, and 0, respectively . Therefore, the student will get a grade 'E' on a nine-point scale in the test having 10 short answer type questions.  

25. CALCULATING OVERALL GRADES IN A SUBJECT Type of questions Number of questions Combined grades obtained by a student Combined numerical grade value Essay type 5 C 6 Short answer type 10 E 4 Objective type 20 C 6 The overall grade obtained by the student in the question paper can be calculated by using the following formula :  

26. CALCULATING OVERALL GRADES IN A SUBJECT In the above example, we have three different types of questions and their grade values are given. Now let us apply the above formula . The corresponding grade for numerical grade value of 5 on a nine-point scale (0-8) is 'D'. Therefore, the overall grade in the test by the student is 'D '.  

27. COMPARISON OF OVERALL PERFORMANCE If we grade the students by adopting the relative grading method we can compare the overall performance of the students in different subjects simply by calculating a new measure known as 'Grade Point Average' (GPA ). The grades obtained by two students in five different subjects on a nine-point scale (0-8) are shown in the table . Student Grades awarded in different subjects   Sanskrit Hindi Soc. Studies Science Maths X A A B C E Y A B A B B The numerical grade values for A to I on a nine-point scale (0-8) are given below: Grade A B C D E F G H I Grade Value 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

28. COMPARISON OF OVERALL PERFORMANCE The GPA can be calculated by using the following formula : By applying this formula, you will get GPA of X and Y students . Since the GPA obtained by Y is greater than that obtained by X, the overall performance of Y is better than that of X.