Are We Grading Fairly?

As someone who spends a lot of time ensuring that curriculum, teaching, and assessment are aligned so we can confidently conclude and provide evidence that our students learned what they needed to know, a question posed by a colleague gave me pause. Though his question focused more on the consistency of grading across professors in higher education, it got me thinking. A significant challenge as a teacher is finding and using the best assessment tool or method that will most closely evaluate whether our students learned. I would venture to say that most of us believe that assessing content knowledge is reasonably easy as single best answer multiple-choice questions are our item of choice. Assessing skills is also fairly straight forward. As Robert F. Mager (1997) so poignantly pointed out, if you want to know if someone can ride a unicycle, you need to watch them ride one. Thus, we use practical exams and OSCE’s to evaluate student clinical and procedural skills.

In the majority of PA programs in which I have worked, there is an overarching agreement among faculty that given we are training health care providers, content and skills knowledge and ability is equal to that of professionalism. In our career, like many others, how we act, behave, respond, and react requires a level of maturity, insight, and resilience. And it is an ARC accreditation requirement that we must teach and assess (B2.19, B4.03e). So, here are three points to consider and reflect upon in your grading practices.

Do you provide clear information about course grading?

It is not uncommon to review a course syllabus and see a list of assessment items under the grading section, such as exam 1, weekly assignments, class participation, and group project. This list usually includes the accompanying percentage of each component’s contribution to the final course grade. However, is a full, detailed narrative about each of these assessments provided to include all of the specifics students need to know to succeed? For example, on exam 1 – what types of questions will be used and what content will be included on that exam. For assignments or projects, the syllabus should have a complete description of what is expected in considerable detail to include: due dates, what happens if it is late, how will their work be graded, particular guidelines and requirements for the assignment or project, and what is and is not acceptable. Ask yourself, have I provided enough information so the students know what they need to do and how best to prepare for or create the assessment item? Ask a colleague to read your syllabus and see if they clearly understand each assessment component in your course.

Are you impartial and consistent?

In my experience, most faculty agree that grading should be impartial and consistent. However, ensuring that is so is a different matter. In a 2009 article by Daryl Close, he makes the argument that “nothing should be relevant to any one student’s grade that is not relevant to every other student’s grade in the course (p.370).” Although I suspect most faculty agree with this statement, the reality is we do things that contradict it. For example, if we take Close’s statement at face value, it means no exceptions. No curving grades, no gifting students a few points so they pass, and no waiving the penalty for a missed due date. For some, this feels too harsh. But here’s the thing. If we grant that one student an extension on their paper and no one else – we are not impartial or consistent. The reality is that when we cross the line and don’t follow our own policies as defined in our course syllabus, some significant challenges can arise. For example, Student A comes to you and explains that some life challenges she is dealing with have prevented her from completing the work on time, and she asks for a 3-day extension on the due date. It’s granted. Once all the assignments are graded and returned to the students, Student B (who scored low on the assignment) comes to you and says, “I understand Student A got an extension. I was also having challenges and could have done better if I had more time, but since the syllabus said late papers would not be accepted, I pushed through, and now I have a low score. I didn’t know I could ask for an extension.”  In this situation, one student was provided with an option that was not made available to all students.

Are you mixing nonacademic elements into the course grade?

Given the importance of instilling, ensuring, and assessing that our students develop and embody professional behaviors and conduct and attain a threshold of knowledge and skills required for practice as a PA, in my experience, we frequently mix the two.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, but something worth looking at more closely. Nonacademic elements include items like attendance, punctuality, respect, and classroom or clinical site expected behaviors. Most syllabi have items in their grading sections that include nonacademic factors. For example, deducting points for each late day past the due date for an assignment or taking points off a student’s final course grade due to chronic lateness to class. I have used both of these examples in my courses, but I would ask you to consider this. Is there a way to have a cleaner delineation between students' academic achievement and professional development? Both are important, for me, equally important. Years ago, I made such a clear delineation during the clinical year (not sure why I didn’t for the didactic year). Each rotation's grading components contained an academic/knowledge section that included the end of rotation exam, a clinical note, and the medical knowledge and skills assessment section of the preceptor evaluation. The other grading section was for professionalism.  It contained requirements for on-time submission of required documents, assignments and forms, attendance at the site and call back dates and the preceptor evaluation's professional section. The overall course grade reflected a combination of academic and nonacademic sections. However, it also provided clear evidence of the student academic achievement separate from their professionalism performance. Would such delineation serve your courses, program, and students better?

References

Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Close, D. (2009). Fair grades. Teaching Philosophy, 32(4), 361-398. doi.org/10.5840/teachphil200932439

Davis, Barbara Gross, Tools for teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009

Mager, R.F. (1997). Preparing instructional objectives (3^rd ed.). Atlanta, GA: The Center for Effective Performance, Inc.

O’Brien, J. G., Millis, B.J., & Cohen, M. W. (2008). The Course Syllabus. A learning-centered approach (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Paff, L. (2016, Nov 27). What are the characteristics of a learner-centered syllabus? The Teaching Professor  Retrieved from https://www.teachingprofessor.com/topics/preparing-to-teach/syllabus/characteristics-learner-centered-syllabus/

Waugh, C.K., and Gronlund, N.E. (2013). Assessment of student achievement (10^th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Weimer, M. (2020). Fair grade policies. The Teaching Professor. Retrieved from https://www.teachingprofessor.com/topics/for-those-who-teach/fair-grading-policies/

Weimer, M. (2020). More on gair grade. The Teaching Professor. Retrieved from https://www.teachingprofessor.com/topics/for-those-who-teach/more-on-fair-grades/