Indeterminacy in the use of preset criteria for assessment and grading in higher education

View/ Open
Author(s)
Sadler, D Royce
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2009
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
When assessment tasks are set for students in universities and colleges, a common practice is to advise them of the criteria that will be used for grading their responses. Various schemes for using multiple criteria have been widely advocated in the literature. Each scheme is designed to offer clear benefits for students. Breaking down holistic judgments into more manageable parts is seen as a way to increase openness for students and achieve more objectivity in grading. However, such approaches do not adequately represent the full complexity of multi-criterion qualitative judgments, and can lead to distorted grading decisions. ...
View more >When assessment tasks are set for students in universities and colleges, a common practice is to advise them of the criteria that will be used for grading their responses. Various schemes for using multiple criteria have been widely advocated in the literature. Each scheme is designed to offer clear benefits for students. Breaking down holistic judgments into more manageable parts is seen as a way to increase openness for students and achieve more objectivity in grading. However, such approaches do not adequately represent the full complexity of multi-criterion qualitative judgments, and can lead to distorted grading decisions. Six anomalies in the ways assessors approach the grading task are identified, together with several likely contributing factors. Overall, the conclusion is that explicit grading models do not have as strong a theoretical foundation as is commonly supposed, and that holistic appraisal merits further investigation.
View less >
View more >When assessment tasks are set for students in universities and colleges, a common practice is to advise them of the criteria that will be used for grading their responses. Various schemes for using multiple criteria have been widely advocated in the literature. Each scheme is designed to offer clear benefits for students. Breaking down holistic judgments into more manageable parts is seen as a way to increase openness for students and achieve more objectivity in grading. However, such approaches do not adequately represent the full complexity of multi-criterion qualitative judgments, and can lead to distorted grading decisions. Six anomalies in the ways assessors approach the grading task are identified, together with several likely contributing factors. Overall, the conclusion is that explicit grading models do not have as strong a theoretical foundation as is commonly supposed, and that holistic appraisal merits further investigation.
View less >
Journal Title
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education
Volume
34
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2009 Routledge. This is an electronic version of an article published in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Volume 34, Issue 2 April 2009 , pages 159 - 179. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education is available online at: http://www.informaworld.com with the open URL of your article.
Subject
Education
Education assessment and evaluation