Grading

“ There has been established a grading system, which automatically eliminates the student who falls below grade, while the university maintains a statistical comparison of school and college records, so as to follow up the work of the high-school student, not only after he has entered college, but to bring the comparison with his record as a high-school student. ”

“ The large amount of incompleteness that is to be found among the products of our schools may be traced, in a large measure, to our irrational and fictitious procedure in the matter of grading. We must keep records, of course, but it will be recalled that in the parable of the talents men were commended or condemned according to the use they made of the talents they had and were not graded according to a fixed standard. ”

“ What evils usually accompany them? Outline a plan by which these purposes may be achieved unaccompanied by the usual evils. 302Is memory of facts the best test of knowledge? Suggest other tests by which the value of a pupil’s knowledge may be judged. Experts sometimes vary more than 70 per cent in grading the same manuscript. The same person often varies 20 per cent or more in grading the same manuscript at different times. An experiment with your own grading might prove interesting. Do you and your pupils in actual practice regard examinations as an end or as a means to an end? ”

“ The study of grading systems has attracted much attention of late among the students of the science of education. It is an excellent subject with which to illustrate scientific methods, because the records being in quantitative form lend themselves to easy and exact statistical comparison.
There is no better body of material for a principal to employ in arousing his teachers to a recognition of the fact that they are factors in a system. Marks are a kind of technical language used in the school system. ”

“ The organized body of materials of instruction constitutes one of the most important factors which enter into the life of the school system. Along with the board of education, with the grading system, and with the staff of teachers and supervisory officers stands the curriculum as a kind of dominating personality always exercising a leading influence in the determination of every educational policy. ”

“ For example: if a searching test in fundamental operations of arithmetic is given, we know that some child will probably get nearly all of the work done correctly, and, even with our care in grading, some child in the group will probably fail in more than half of the work; and that between these two extremes we will have almost every grade of ability represented, with a tendency for a considerable number to group themselves at about that point which we consider ordinary or average ability. ”

“ The discussion suggests, what is undoubtedly the fact, that the so-called academies, high schools, graded schools, even colleges of that time, took in practically everybody who offered. There was no such system of grading as we now look upon as a matter of course. ”

“ To reply that a given symbol signifies a certain per cent, of an undefined something is to beg the question. The administration of the curriculum on a percentage basis—giving grade B in Greek, for example, a value of 80 to 90 per cent.—is apparently exact, but in reality far from it.
We have here used the statistics of institutions which do not attempt to grade students in many groups. The usual school method of grading on a one-hundred-per-cent. basis produces confusion. As a matter of fact, teachers can not use more than a dozen grades with discrimination. ”

“ A man degrading for any other reason cannot go out afterwards in honors."—Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, p. 98.
I could choose the year below without formally degrading.—Ibid., p. 157.
DEGREE. A mark of distinction conferred on students, as a testimony of their proficiency in arts and sciences; giving them a kind of rank, and entitling them to certain privileges. This is usually evidenced by a diploma. Degrees are conferred pro meritis on the alumni of a college; or they are honorary tokens of respect, conferred on strangers of distinguished reputation. ”

“ What is the true motive of examinations? Real teaching leads to the systematic, all-sided up-building of a compact body of knowledge in the mind. In this up-building or instruction, every faculty of the mind is brought into action—perception, judgment, classification, reason, imagination, and memory. Examinations, then, should test the condition and progress of the mind in its development. Is the common standard of examinations a test of real teaching? If I am not mistaken, the examinations usually given simply test the pupil's power of memorizing disconnected facts. ”

“ The [Pg 29] immediate business is to make the master's degree a real thing, an honest thing, to make it the sign of a higher standard than the bachelor's degree, whether the bachelor's standard be fixed high or low. Let there be some kind of standard, some kind of test. Its particular shape, whether an examination, or a disputation, or the writing of a thesis, or anything else, need not now be discussed. I ask only that there should be a test of proficiency of some kind, and that there should be the widest possible range of subjects in which proficiency may be tested. ”

“ Making inquiries of professors and students, I found that the young man, both at school and at the university, was, as a rule, at the head of every class he had entered; and therefore it was that, when the examination papers came in at the close of the term, I first took up his papers to see how he had stood the test. They proved to be masterly. There were excellent scholars in the senior class, but not one had done so well as this young sophomore; in fact, I doubt whether I could have passed a better examination on my own lectures. ”

“ The determination of the validity of the grades given to college students and their standardization appear to me to be important because I regard it as desirable that students should be credited for the work they do rather than for the number of hours that they attend courses. By our present method a student who fails gets no credit at all, while a student who is nearly as bad (and perhaps worse) gets as much credit towards his degree as the best student in the class. ”

“ In addition to specific exercises and devices which ensure accuracy in special points, we should observe certain general rules which will be described and treated under the heading of gradation.
10. Gradation
Gradation means passing from the known to the unknown by easy stages, each of which serves as a prepara [23] tion for the next. If a course or a lesson is insufficiently graded, or graded on a wrong basis, the student’s work will be marked by an excessive degree of inaccuracy. If a course is well graded, the student’s rate of progress will increase in proportion as he advances. ”

“ I’ll give you a grade that I think you are justly entitled to, and I’ll stand back of that grade to the last ditch. When we get right down to it, there’s more at stake than the matter of your grade. There’s my ability and honesty as an examiner. ”

“ Grades assigned to college students have some meaning, though just what this is remains to be determined. Dr. Wissler [1] has shown that there is a decided correlation in the standing in different subjects. A man who receives a high grade in Latin is likely to receive a high grade in Greek, and almost as likely to receive a high grade in mathematics or gymnastics. This seems to indicate that the grades are assigned for moral traits, or for the general impression made by the man, as much as for ability and performance in a given subject. ”

“ The lower degree is meant to mark a certain measure of proficiency in the studies of the faculty; the higher degree is meant to mark a higher [Pg 28] measure of proficiency, that measure which qualifies a man to become, if he thinks good, a teacher in that faculty. ”

“ Moreover, the teacher may make the average marks high or low merely by varying the form and content of the examination papers or the strictness of his markings.
Each ideal and method of teaching has its corresponding type of examination. Descriptive and concrete courses lend themselves naturally to memory tests; theoretical courses lend themselves to problems and reasoning. A high type of question is one whose proper answer necessitates knowledge of the facts acquired in the course together with an interpretation of the principles and their application to new problems. ”

“ Gentlemen Graduates, not only the necessity of bearing in mind the charge given you on receiving your degrees,—namely, that you ever in your lives and conversation show yourselves worthy of the same—but that you bear in mind that when you can place after your names the letters of your degree your education is not finished—in truth, it has but just begun. ”

“ Gradation of subject matter is another characteristic of good organization. Careful gradation is not so vital in subjects of social content as it is in mathematics, foreign languages, and exact sciences. The most important single factor in removing difficulties that beset a student is gradation. Teaching problems often arise because the instructor or the textbook presents more than one difficulty at a time. ”

“ Examination—thorough, searching examination—is an indispensable accompaniment of teaching; but I am almost inclined to commit myself to the very heterodox proposition that it is a necessary evil. I am a very old examiner, having, for some twenty years past, been occupied with examinations on a considerable scale, of all sorts and conditions of men, and women too—from the boys and girls of elementary schools, to the candidates for honors and fellowships in the universities. ”

“ We look on our own students as better than the average and in any case give them the benefit of the doubt. We call things 'fair' that are only average, and then the word 'fair' comes to mean average. Then we assign the grade 'fair' to students who are below the average, and a 'fair' student comes to mean a poor student. In assigning grades such words should be avoided; we should learn to think in terms of the average and probable error. ”

“ The simplest method of assigning grades is to arrange a hundred papers as nearly as may be in the order of merit and to give the poorest paper the grade 1, the next poorest the grade 2, and so on, until the best paper receives the grade 100. ”

“ The second innovation in method of teaching, namely, supervised study, came as a reaction against the purely examination method of conducting class exercises which was formerly almost universal except in laboratory classes. The examination method is the familiar one of calling a pupil to his feet and then asking him one question after another to find out whether he has learned his lesson. If he answers well, he is marked with a high grade. If he answers badly, he is marked with a low grade, reprimanded, and told to do his work over. ”

“ Wherever examinations are introduced—and by examinations I understand any demand for answers to questions—there appears only a new and useless object, demanding special labor, special qualities, and this object is called preparation for examinations or lessons. The pupil in the gymnasium learns history or mathematics, and in addition something important—the art of answering examination questions. ”

“ The classes are arranged into a number of sections, according to their class rank, as determined at the previous annual examination, or according to rank in some particular study—for instance, for instruction in engineering the first class is arranged according to merit in philosophy, and not according to general merit or class rank. ”

“ Examinations, examinations by teachers who understand this very fine art, in which the student is obliged to restate, apply, and use the principles of his subject, are of the utmost value in keeping the mind active and not simply receptive. They are just as good and as vitally necessary as examination papers which merely demand definitions and lists and bald facts are bad. ”

“ The Commissioner of Education of New York State writes of the schools,— [1] “A child is worse off in a graded school than in an ungraded one, if the work of a grade is not capable of some specific valuation, and if each added grade does not provide some added power. The first two grades run much to entertainment and amusement. The third and fourth grades repeat the work supposed to have been done in the first two. Too many unimportant and unrelated facts are taught. ”

“ The passing grade in the one would necessarily be lower than in the other. An examination is justified only when it is so devised that it reveals not only the students' stock of socially useful knowledge but also their growth in mental power. ”

“ Probably in no other field has the teacher been so apt to derive his standard from the performance of the class as in work in composition. Even though some teachers find it difficult to evaluate the work of their pupils in terms of the sample compositions given on the scale, much good must come, it seems to the writer, from the attempt to grade compositions by such an objective scale. ”

“ Our pupils were of different ages and grades of improvement, some, indeed, older than ourselves, so that accurate classification was a matter of labor as well as tact. Our course of study was extensive for the times, and thorough. We encouraged them to question us on points not well understood, and, as we required of them readiness of reply in recitation, found it necessary to review our own studies, especially historical ones, lest some inquiry of a chronological character should cause hesitation, or haply disclose ignorance.
We attached great importance to clear, fair chirography. ”

“ Erudition would be tested by the power of writing, at leisure, a dissertation on some subject selected by the examiners or the candidate or, in the case of a teacher, by the delivery of a lecture on the subject. At the French agrégation candidates are given twenty-four hours for the preparation of a lecture of this kind. Such examinations would test the “skill in the manipulation of facts which is the true sign of a trained intelligence” (cf. K. Pearson, “The Function of Science in the Modern State,” Ency. Brit. 10th ed. xxxii. Prefatory essay) . ”