Grading

Grading is the practice of evaluating students’ work or performance and assigning marks or grades to communicate achievement. It can guide learning, certify attainment, and support decisions about progression.

Assessment: The systematic collection and interpretation of evidence about learning, skills, or performance. Grading is one way assessment evidence is summarized and communicated.
Student motivation: The reasons, goals, and forces that direct a student’s effort and persistence in learning. Grades can strengthen or weaken motivation depending on how students interpret their meaning.
Pass–fail grading: A grading system that records whether work meets a threshold rather than assigning a ranked mark. It limits distinctions among levels of achievement that conventional grades preserve.
Educational measurement: The use of methods and instruments to quantify knowledge, skills, or other educational attributes. Grading depends on whether learning can be measured reliably and meaningfully.
Rubric: A scoring guide that describes criteria and levels of performance for an assignment or task. Rubrics make grading criteria more explicit and can support consistent judgments.
Academic self-concept: A person’s beliefs about their abilities and competence in academic domains. Repeated grades can shape students’ beliefs about what they can learn or achieve.
GPA: A numerical summary of a student’s course grades, commonly calculated as a grade point average. A GPA aggregates individual grades into a portable measure of academic record.
Reliability (psychometrics): The consistency of scores or judgments across occasions, items, or evaluators. Uneven grading reliability raises questions about whether marks reflect students or graders.
Norm-referenced test: A test that interprets a score by comparing it with scores from a reference group. Norm-based grading can rank performance relative to classmates rather than fixed standards.
Feedback: Information about performance that can guide improvement or confirm progress. A grade communicates little about next steps unless paired with useful feedback.

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