What Do Grades Mean? A Scoping Literature Review on Students’ Perceptions of Grades and Grading Practices

Cassie Wallwey; Michelle Soledad; Carol Geary

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: NEE Technical Session 4 - Assessments: Grading and deadlines
Tagged Division: New Engineering Educators Division (NEE)
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/48266

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Paper Authors

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Cassie Wallwey Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University orcid.org/0000-0003-1318-1843

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Cassie Wallwey, PhD is a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. Her research interests include studying effective feedback in engineering and mathematics courses, improving engineering student motivation and success, and understanding exclusion in engineering to fight its weed-out culture. Cassie has her Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Ohio State University, where she worked as a Graduate Research Assistant and Graduate Teaching Associate, primarily teaching first-year engineering and engineering mathematics. She also has both a B.S. and M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Wright State, where she also worked as a Graduate Teaching Associate for an engineering mathematics course.

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Michelle Soledad Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University orcid.org/0000-0002-2491-6684

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Michelle Soledad, Ph.D. is a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. Her research and service interests include teaching and learning experiences in fundamental engineering courses, faculty development and support initiatives – including programs for the future engineering professoriate, and leveraging institutional data to support reflective teaching practices. She has degrees in Electrical Engineering (B.S., M.Eng.) from the Ateneo de Davao University in Davao City, Philippines, where she previously held appointments as Assistant Professor and Department Chair for Electrical Engineering. She also previously served as Director for Communications and International Engagement at the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, Lecturer at the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University, and Assistant Professor at the Department of Integrated Engineering at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech.

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Carol Geary Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Carol Geary is a second-year student pursuing a Ph.D. in Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. Her interests include co-curricular support, mentoring, and peer mentoring.

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Abstract

Do grades matter? What do grades mean or represent? Ways to rank students and describe academic performance have been used in practice since at least the early eighteenth century. Over time, educators have begun to consider whether grades - in their various forms, numeric or otherwise - sufficiently represent how well students learned, and explore what grades really mean. The impact of grades on student motivation, self-efficacy, and identity, among other constructs, has also been a subject of interest. In Engineering, these constructs are important to consider as they may impact student persistence, success, and diversity.

This scoping review explores current literature on the use of grades and their impact on students - specifically from students’ perspectives. How do students describe grades and their experiences with prevailing grading practices and assessment strategies, as documented in literature? What meaning do students ascribe to grades, and how does this meaning making impact their motivation, self-esteem, and identity? Ultimately, the results of this literature review will serve as the basis for developing strategies to ensure that students are able to thrive in a learning environment where the focus is on learning, going beyond numeric or similar representations of academic performance.

To answer the questions posed above, we are conducting a scoping review of literature on students’ perceptions of grades. We are using a broad search parameter that may yield literature from both K-12 and higher education spaces in order to establish the general conversation on grades from students’ perspectives. We followed Arksey & O’Malley’s (2005) five-stage framework for conducting scoping literature reviews as a methodology to identify possibly relevant articles and filter through which answer our research question to include in our analysis. Two researchers conducted the analysis, and all decisions and observations were documented in a shared repository to ensure quality, trustworthiness, and replicability. This scoping review will provide a deeper insight into students’ perceptions of the grading systems they are assessed within and the meanings that they ascribe to grades through the review and summary of literature on the topic of grades through student lenses. The insights from this scoping review will allow faculty to better understand how students may be experiencing learning environments in which grades are assigned, and subsequently intentionally designing curriculum and pedagogy to improve students’ learning experiences and environments.

Citation
Format

Wallwey, C., & Soledad, M., & Geary, C. (2024, June), What Do Grades Mean? A Scoping Literature Review on Students’ Perceptions of Grades and Grading Practices Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48266

TY - CPAPER
AB - Do grades matter? What do grades mean or represent? Ways to rank students and describe academic performance have been used in practice since at least the early eighteenth century. Over time, educators have begun to consider whether grades - in their various forms, numeric or otherwise - sufficiently represent how well students learned, and explore what grades really mean. The impact of grades on student motivation, self-efficacy, and identity, among other constructs, has also been a subject of interest. In Engineering, these constructs are important to consider as they may impact student persistence, success, and diversity.

This scoping review explores current literature on the use of grades and their impact on students - specifically from students’ perspectives. How do students describe grades and their experiences with prevailing grading practices and assessment strategies, as documented in literature? What meaning do students ascribe to grades, and how does this meaning making impact their motivation, self-esteem, and identity? Ultimately, the results of this literature review will serve as the basis for developing strategies to ensure that students are able to thrive in a learning environment where the focus is on learning, going beyond numeric or similar representations of academic performance.

To answer the questions posed above, we are conducting a scoping review of literature on students’ perceptions of grades. We are using a broad search parameter that may yield literature from both K-12 and higher education spaces in order to establish the general conversation on grades from students’ perspectives. We followed Arksey &amp;amp; O’Malley’s (2005) five-stage framework for conducting scoping literature reviews as a methodology to identify possibly relevant articles and filter through which answer our research question to include in our analysis. Two researchers conducted the analysis, and all decisions and observations were documented in a shared repository to ensure quality, trustworthiness, and replicability.
This scoping review will provide a deeper insight into students’ perceptions of the grading systems they are assessed within and the meanings that they ascribe to grades through the review and summary of literature on the topic of grades through student lenses. The insights from this scoping review will allow faculty to better understand how students may be experiencing learning environments in which grades are assigned, and subsequently intentionally designing curriculum and pedagogy to improve students’ learning experiences and environments.
AU - Cassie Wallwey
AU - Michelle Soledad
AU - Carol Geary
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - What Do Grades Mean? A Scoping Literature Review on Students’ Perceptions of Grades and Grading Practices
UR - https://peer.asee.org/48266
ER -