Actual grading practice

The fact that there was a difference between the University's NRA and what teaching staff believe to be a fair and reflective grading system, leads to an interesting question. How did teaching staff actually do their grading in the way they believed to be fair and equitable, but at the same time adhere to the University's NRA? The approach that teaching staff used to tackle this situation is discussed.

From the questionnaire survey, around 50% of respondents indicted that they used the University's grading system (A+, A, ...D+, D and F), 32% said that they used a combination of their own grading method (often a numerical scale in percentages) and the University's grading system (Figure 1).

This means that they used another system (such as percentages) which they then converted to the University's system in order to input grades into the central computer system. The remaining 13% responded that they used an alternative method. However, if it was used for summative purposes, it would also have had to be converted to the University's grading system otherwise it could not be inputted into the computer system. The findings of the focus group interviews confirmed a combination of grading methods among teaching staff:

"I will plot a histogram and then try to divide them (students' marks in an assessment task) into a group of five marks each, two marks each, whatever. Then, I will work with the University guideline as well as the departmental guideline." (Teacher, Department B)

Some departments developed their own grading criteria and associated descriptors in order to better measure and reflect specific knowledge, skills, and understanding of students that are related to the professional expertise expected of them when they graduate. A comment from a Head of Department:

"Yes, the Program Committee is responsible for running the program and deciding the criteria, on the basis of the competences that we expect from our students." (Head of Department, Department H)

مواضيع ذات صلة

The module Ethics in Healthcare

Curricula requirements

Integration what it means

An Integrated Approach to Learning, Teaching and Assessment in a Healthcare Ethics Module

Perspectives of Teachers and Students towards Assessment Conclusions

Norm-referenced assessment (NRA) in teaching staff grading

Grading descriptors

Normal distribution grading policy

Criterion referencing assessment (CRA) and norm-referencing (NRA) assessment

Teaching staff emphasis on summative assessment

Actual assessment practices

Formative and summative assessment