Why cant we use grades?
A letter grade is a nominal value that provides an overall summary of a students performance. Salient and summative in nature, grades inform instructors about their students achievement and play a key role in any academic system. However, they have shortcomings when being used for the purposes of making informed improvements about a program if they are not clearly linked to major learning goals and are not clearly delineated through the use of test blueprints or rubrics (Walvood & Anderson, 1998). A significant body of literature has focused on the subjective nature of grades, and this research has suggested that instructors use grades to motivate students to learn. The tendency of instructors to use attitude, effort, class discussion, and participation has been well documented (Guskey, 1994) calling into question the validity of such assessment. Grading standards within departments or programs may also be vague and inconsistent and do not correspond to department learning goals. This
