The Negative Impact Of Grading System On Students’ Motivation And Learning

Background and Introduction

It has been noticed that students are likely to perform less efficiently when their knowledge is being evaluated by grading system. It decreases the enthusiasm of learning something new and they are gradually losing their urge of exploring the surroundings for knowledge as it is all about scoring high grades and not about core conception. Therefore, this paper aims to establish an argument against the traditional education system considering the cases of British Columbia Schools, where grading is the ultimate way of evaluation. It will argue against the grading system of evaluation and try to refute against the method, which has been proven to affect students’ motivation of learning new things.

As argued by Boatright-Horowitz : 256, it must be understood that grading is not the ultimate way to measure a student’s competence yet educational institutions have been practicing it for almost four to eight decades. Early research papers on this have argued as well that how feasible this learning framework is as far as the attainment of knowledge is concerned. According to a study conducted on elementary school students, grading system has a major negative impact on students’ interest on lessons. Further, Pulfrey et al. : 39, has presented a counter argument by saying grades have not proved to be a motivational aspect as far as development of students is concerned yet has been maintained since a long time within educational history. Grades have made the students dependable on textual lessons and to be precise they focus more on easy topics, which are necessary to score marks and avoiding deeper concepts. As a result, they are failing to gain detail knowledge of different subjects. Therefore, refuting both the argument it can be stated that, students are unable to perform in long term aspirations of their life.

Another bad effect of grade based learning is that, the method is centrally dependent on books. Students hardly raise questions against the lessons and they lose the potential of thinking both critically and creatively. According to Bashir et al., grades must not be highlighted as major concern of parents and teachers to encourage the children for learning the lessons first before worrying about grades. As instance, in a grade oriented atmosphere students live with a fear of scoring bad marks, which affects their learning procedure. Consequently, they focus on passing the exam without learning the concepts in detail. This incident results a decline in quality of students. Elimination of this grading system if does not have any positive effects it does not have any negative effect either. Students must concentrate on lessons to gain knowledge not to score grades. There are certain components of learning and these cannot be measured via grading system. There are students who have been being raised within a traditional schooling situation, who are used to in perform grade oriented atmosphere yet there are a proportion who needs more time to learn or try to question facts and include individual thoughts and judge every theory. The later mentioned proportion of students face immense problem when the system evaluates them based on grading system. In the due course, they lose motivation and likely to be tagged as low performing students in most of the cases. Again as argued by Schinske et al.: 162,  achievement must be measured on conceptions not on grades. There is no use of high marks if perception of the subject is not clear. Yet, confusion occurs when the specific assessment procedure cannot be determined. Therefore, from these two arguments it can be stated that the authority who sets the curriculum and teachers too must initiate alternative assessment programs, which have potential to diminish considerable harm on students’ future.

Disadvantages of Grading System on Students’ Motivation and Learning

According to a detail reading of Kohn, Alfie: 31, grades are not helpful as far as dealings of real world is concerned. The outer world is a place where students will apply their conception and their power of effective thinking will lead them towards success. Yet, recruiters set preferences according to quantitative process first. Therefore, acknowledging the threat due to the current practice of curriculum, authorities must challenge the conventional setting and introduce new method of assessments that will encourage in attaining proper conception of subjects over high scores.

As argued by Spencer, Kyle: 4, although recruiters prefer to have employees who have achieved high grades, a case had been noticed by a high school physics teacher that students who have scored well in class 11, are likely to be weak in critical concepts of the subject. They are comfortable until answering the routine questions, which are required to answer for exams only and on the contrary, sections that need critical understanding and effort students are unable to answer from those parts. The teacher, Frank Noschese decided to reward students for obtaining knowledge instead of scoring marks ignoring the fact that it would take immense time to fulfill the mission. Therefore, the logic can be established that, firstly, students have to be comfortable around new curriculum, as they have already adapted themselves within this competitive grade oriented educational system. Teachers like Noschese are required to be part of a changing curriculum with the purpose of adding another dimension to conventional grading system. Grading system in education actually introduced to evaluate students before promoting them to next level.

It has been observed that people who have left a mark on different levels of science, mathematics and literature most of them did not receive traditional schooling. That does not mean individuals who do not opt for schooling turn into a successful one. Arguing against grading system Biggs et al., suggests that proposing it to be more learning oriented rather than scores, is feasible enough to evaluate the quality of the student. Although there are advantages yet there are certain disadvantages, which can be presented against this conventional system by reading the study of Yancey, Blake: 305 and considering the potential damage that has already been measured.

Hence, few results have been established to be true. Firstly, when students are well aware of the pass marks they likely to study less and answer only to pass not to gain knowledge. Secondly, due to lack of competence their performance slows down. Receiving A+ or C cannot be the ultimate judgment of a student’s intelligent quotient. This tradition method is gradually destroying students’ capability of exploring and describing concepts with their own interpretation. Students cannot be distinguished in terms of grades; on the contrary, they must discuss, share knowledge and help to build capabilities and proper conception even when the lesson is critical.

Various studies on disadvantages of grading system have proved its futility as far as students’ improvement in both the performance and gaining knowledge can be considered. Choosing a system, which is able to examine the intelligence quotient as well as attained knowledge of them, will not only help to be promoted to the next level but also will be beneficial to accomplish long-term goals of life. Schools and band of teachers must come forward for implementing a structure of better educational curriculum, which is going to be effective as far as understanding the subject and growing perception are concerned. Therefore, to conclude, it can be stated that high grades without adequate knowledge is of no use. It can be regarded as an established truth, as it is prominent, that instead of improvement students are suffering with psychological pressure of competition, lack of motivation, covering important points only instead of gaining detail knowledge and few students are focusing only to the passing marks to get rid of the rat race. Hence, grading system cannot be universally acknowledged as an effective and appropriate evaluation system.

References

Bashir, Shakila, Munaza Bajwa, and Sulmaz Rana. “Teacher as a role model and its impact on the life of female students.” International Journal of Research-Granthaalayah 1.1 (2014): 9-20.

Biggs, John B., and Kevin F. Collis. Evaluating the quality of learning: The SOLO taxonomy (Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome). Academic Press, 2014.

Boatright-Horowitz, Su L., and Chris Arruda. “College students’ categorical perceptions of grades: it’s simply ‘good’vs.‘bad’.” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education38.3 (2013): 253-259.

Kohn, Alfie. “The case against grades.” Educational Leadership 69.3 (2011): 28-33.

Pulfrey, Caroline, Céline Darnon, and Fabrizio Butera. “Autonomy and task performance: Explaining the impact of grades on intrinsic motivation.” Journal of Educational Psychology 105.1 (2013): 39.

Schinske, Jeffrey, and Kimberly Tanner. “Teaching more by grading less (or differently).” CBE—Life Sciences Education13.2 (2014): 159-166.

Spencer, Kyle. “Standards-based grading.” The Education Digest 78.3 (2012): 4.

Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Grading ePortfolios: Tracing Two Approaches, Their Advantages, and Their Disadvantages.” Theory Into Practice 54.4 (2015): 301-308.