Grading Policies
Individual faculty may not have full agency to determine their grading policy; some policies are set at the level of the department or school. But to the extent that faculty can make their own policy, it will be important to consider what they want to use grades for. Grades focus student attention on particular assignments and aspects of the course, and cause more extrinsic than intrinsic motivation. They also cause students (and many instructors) stress, which can be motivating or distracting, depending. Finally, grades summarize student accomplishments in a particular way, so faculty will want to use a grading scheme where the final grade says something meaningful about what the student has attained with regards to course goals.
Below we've provided policy options, as well as rationale for using each of them—or not. Feel free to use the language below in your syllabus, and adapt as necessary.
Curved Grading
Contract Grading
Completion Grading
Rubrics
Ungrading
Curved Grading
Student grades are determined by relative standing in the course, distributed across the grade range according to some standard.
Sample Syllabus Policy: "Consistent with department requirements, the assignments and final grades in this course will be graded on a curve. See below for details."
| Rationale For | Rationale Against |
|---|---|
| May be required by department/program; prevents grade inflation. | Assesses each student not on whether they accomplished course goals, but on how they performed relative to other students; may create an illusion of variability in student performance if relatively uniform performance is spread into a curve; students can sometimes be left very unclear on what their final grades in key assignments will actually be. |
Contract Grading
Students can choose their grade by deciding which assignments (and how many) they will complete.
Sample Syllabus Policy: "Your grade in this course is in your hands. If you successfully complete the two major term assignments listed below (and nothing else), you will receive a C in the course. If you successfully complete those two major assignments plus six reading responses, you will receive a B. If you successfully complete the two major assignments, six reading responses, and an in-class research presentation, you will receive an A in the course."
| Rationale For | Rationale Against |
|---|---|
| Makes goalposts very clear to students. Gives them agency to decide how much energy to put into the course. | May result in some students choosing not to do tasks that you actually consider important for learning. |
Completion Grading
Student grades will be based on the percentage of work that is successfully completed by the end of the semester.
Sample Syllabus Policy: "After submitting assignments, you will receive feedback from me and an indication of whether the assignment has been marked as successful or not. You are allowed to revise any assignment as many times as you like, before the end of the semester, to try to reach “successful.” In the end, you will be given a final grade based on the percentage of assignments you complete successfully in the course. (See table below for what percentages correspond with which grades.)"
| Rationale For | Rationale Against |
|---|---|
| Evaluates students based not on their first attempt but instead on what they’ve learned/mastered by the end of the semester. Gives students agency to decide how to respond to feedback and pursue learning and grades.. | Can be labor-intensive for the student and for the instructor. |
Rubrics
Rubrics are clear standards for how various assignments (and aspects of assignments) will be graded.
Sample Syllabus Policy: "This assignment will be graded according to the rubric below, where each component of the assignment (ideas, research, organization, clarity, grammar/spelling) will be rated between poor and excellent according to the criteria listed in the table. As you will see, different components are given different weights in the final grade, which gives you an indication of what I value most in the assignment."
| Rationale For | Rationale Against |
| Clarity of expectations. Makes it easier for you to apply the same criteria to assignments by different students and thus reduces the possibility of bias. | Some assignments may not fit neatly into this conception, resulting in final grades that feel inaccurate to faculty and students. There is still room for judgment calls (and therefore bias) in assessing individual components of the assignment. |
Ungrading
Students are not given grades during the semester, and may assign themselves grades at the end of the course.
Sample Syllabus Policy: "Many studies over the years have shown that a person’s intrinsic interest in learning can be undermined if there’s an expectation of external rewards or punishments—and those same things have been shown again and again to undermine creativity as well (see chapters 1 and 8 in our text The Nature of Human Creativity if you want to read about the evidence). Thus: it would be professional malpractice for me to assign you grades for your individual assignments or for the class as a whole. And yet the registrar needs grades at the end of the semester. So here’s what we’re going to do: at the end of the semester, you’re going to give yourself an evaluation and a grade and submit it to me along with your creative annotation. I reserve the right to modify this grade if it seems way off to me, but that generally won’t happen.
Amabile, T.M. Creativity and the labor of love. In Sternberg, R.J. & Kaufman, J.C. (2018). The Nature of Human Creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hennessey, B.A. I never intended to become a research psychologist. In Sternberg, R.J. & Kaufman, J.C. (2018). The Nature of Human Creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press."
| Rationale For | Rationale Against |
|---|---|
| There is substantial evidence that grades can be harmful to intrinsic motivation and creativity. Ungrading focuses student and faculty attention on the work and the learning rather than on letter grades. Emphasizes feedback over ranking. | Puts pressure on students to evaluate themselves. May create conflict between wanting to be honest in self-evaluation and wanting to get good grades. It may take time/practice, an potentially coaching by the faculty member, for students to be able to self-evaluate effectively. |
