Making the grade: a history of the A–F marking scheme

This article provides a historical interpretation of one of the defining features of modern schooling: grades. As a central element of schools, grades—their origins, uses and evolution—provide a window into the tensions at the heart of building a national public school system in the United States. We argue that grades began as an intimate communication tool among teachers, parents, and students used largely to inform and instruct. But as reformers worked to develop a national school system in the late nineteenth century, they saw grades as useful tools in an organizational rather than pedagogical enterprise—tools that would facilitate movement, communication and coordination. Reformers placed a premium on readily interpretable and necessarily abstract grading systems. This shift in the importance of grades as an external rather than internal communication device required a concurrent shift in the meaning of grades—the meaning and nuance of the local context was traded for the uniformity and fungibility of more portable forms.     

Let’s stop the pretence of consistent marking: exploring the multiple limitations of assessment criteria

Unreliability in marking is well documented, yet we lack studies that have investigated assessors’ detailed use of assessment criteria. This project used a form of Kelly’s repertory grid method to examine the characteristics that 24 experienced UK assessors notice in distinguishing between students’ performance in four contrasting subject disciplines: that is their implicit assessment criteria. Variation in the choice, ranking and scoring of criteria was evident. Inspection of the individual construct scores in a sub-sample of academic historians revealed five factors in the use of criteria that contribute to marking inconsistency. The results imply that, whilst more effective and social marking processes that encourage sharing of standards in institutions and disciplinary communities may help align standards, assessment decisions at this level are so complex, intuitive and tacit that variability is inevitable. We conclude that universities should be more honest with themselves and with students, and actively help students to understand that application of assessment criteria is a complex judgement and there is rarely an incontestable interpretation of their meaning.     

To trust or not to trust?—teacher marking versus external marking of national tests

In the Swedish educational system, teachers have the dual responsibility of assigning final grades and marking their own students’ national tests. The Government has mandated the Swedish Schools Inspectorate to remark samples of the national tests to see if teacher marking can be trusted. Reports from this project have concluded that intermarker consistency is low and that teachers’ markings are generous as compared to those of the external markers. These findings have been heavily publicized, leading to distrust in teachers’ assessments. In the article, we analyze and discuss the remarking studies from methodological as well as substantive angles. We conclude that the design applied in the reanalysis does not allow inferences about bias in marking across schools or teachers. We also conclude that there are several alternative explanations for the observation that teacher marks are higher than the external marks: The external markers did not form a representative sample, they read copies with sometimes marginal legibility, and they used a different scale for marking than the teachers had used. The results are thus not as clearcut as suggested by the reports and media releases, which is because a school inspections logic rather than a research logic was applied in designing, conducting, and reporting the studies.     

How reliable is marking in GCSE English?

In a re-marking exercise to investigate the reliability of marking in GCSE English examinations, the Principal Examiners' marks were adopted as 'true' marks for comparison with the actual or 'live' marks that had been awarded by the appointed examiners. A variety of approaches to investigating mark/re-mark reliability collectively led to the conclusion that marking reliability was particularly strong in the Higher tier of the specification that differentiates by outcome.     

Speed isn’t everything: a study of examination marking

The question of whether marking speed is related to marking accuracy is important for training examiners and planning realistic marking schedules. We explored marking speed in the context of a past examination for an international biology qualification for 14‐ to 16‐year‐olds. Forty‐two markers with differing backgrounds experimentally marked 23 diverse examination questions. All responded to questionnaires about times taken to mark two of four samples of candidate responses. We demonstrated a positive practice effect for inexperienced markers, who became significantly faster during the course of their marking whilst maintaining their accuracies; there was no clear trade‐off between speed and accuracy. The benefits of marking practice and background experience are distinct phenomena. To improve accuracy, longer term investments in education and experience are needed.     

The road to self-assessment: exemplar marking before peer review develops first-year students’ capacity to judge the quality of a scientific report

Lack of clarity about assessment criteria and standards is a source of anxiety for many first-year university students. The Developing Understanding of Assessment for Learning (DUAL) programme was designed as a staged approach to gradually familiarise students with expectations, and to provide opportunities for the development of the skills required to successfully complete assessment tasks. This paper investigated the students’ perceptions of the first two components of the DUAL programme, which assist first-year biology students to engage with stated assessment criteria and standards in order to develop their capacity to make judgements about scientific report exemplars, their peers’ scientific reports and ultimately their own. The study found strong evidence (96% of responses) that the marking and discussion of exemplar reports with peers and demonstrators clarified expectations of scientific report writing. A key feature of this element of DUAL was the opportunity for structured discussion about assessment criteria and standards between peers and markers (demonstrators). During these discussions, students can clarify explicit statements and develop a tacit knowledge base to enhance their ability to judge the quality of others’ work and their own. The peer review exercise (the second element of DUAL) was not rated as highly, with 65% of students finding the process helpful for improving their report. The negative reactions by a sizeable minority of students highlight the need to clearly communicate the expectations and benefits of peer review, with a focus on how the process of giving feedback to peers might benefit a student as much as receiving feedback on their own report.     

A qualitative study of markers’ perceptions on onscreen marking in five subject areas

This paper reports on a qualitative study on markers’ perceptions of onscreen marking (OSM) in association with key influential factors of marking reliability. The study has made adaptations to an existing framework proposed by Black, Suto, and Bramley in 2011 for exploring issues related to influential factors of marking reliability in OSM contexts. Specifically, the study investigated those influential factors in the framework that can be manipulated and managed by the examination authority. The study involved 31 markers for a large-scale publication examination who were secondary school teachers from 5 subject areas. The major themes indicated that markers’ attitudes towards OSM might be potentially associated with the types of questions they marked. Further, the advantages and disadvantages of OSM as perceived by the markers were likely to be related to key influential factors of reliability pertaining to the quality control process and the usability of technology in the OSM system.     

Toward intelligent manufacturing： label characters marking and recognition method for steel products with machine vision

Correctly coding materials and identifying characters marked on materials are very important for steel manufacturing industry to realize informatization management and intelligent manufacturing. However, the steel products manufacturing is often in a high temperature environment, and there are a lot of material storage and retrieval processes, workers are not easily close to the environment and complete tasks, so it is a great challenge to automatically mark and identify characters on the steel products. This paper presents a framework of label characters marking and management for steel materials, furthermore, a kind of marked characters online detection and tracking method has been provided based on machine vision. In addition, some experiments have been done in BaoSteel to mark characters on hot billets and recognize them in multi situations, and the results show that the proposed method is practical, and has provided a helpful exploration in obtaining accurate fundamental data for the intelligent manufacturing system in steelworks.     

The impact of anonymous marking on students’ perceptions of fairness,feedback and relationships with lecturers

Anonymity in marking is a contentious issue within higher education. Conflicting research findings have identified issues surrounding gender bias, ethnicity bias and fairness in marking. However, the effects of anonymity upon feedback mechanisms have not been systematically explored. This study sought to understand the effects of anonymous marking and feedback upon students’ perceptions of its potential for future learning and relationship building with their lecturers. First year United Kingdom undergraduate business, politics, pharmacy and french students experienced anonymous and non-anonymous marking of coursework across different modules. Student performance data were collected, and a survey was administered following the completion of their modules. Results revealed that anonymous marking did not seem to advantage or disadvantage particular groups of students in terms of grade outcome. There was no significant difference in perceptions of fairness according to whether or not marking was anonymous. Furthermore, the results suggest that anonymous marking might undermine the learning potential of feedback, and minimise the strength of the relationship between lecturers and students, which may minimise the role of dialogue in the feedback process.     

The effects of key demographic variables on markers’ perceived ease of use and acceptance of onscreen marking

The current study aims to investigate the effects of three key demographic factors – the language of marking, gender and age – on markers’ reactions to onscreen marking (OSM). A total of 1743 markers completed a post-marking questionnaire consisting of two previously validated scales, i.e. Ease of Use in the OSM Environment and Acceptance of OSM scales. Rasch analysis results showed that the two scales had good psychometric properties. Markers generally reported finding the system easy to use and positive acceptance of OSM. Markers marking in both English and Chinese had higher perceived ease of use and acceptance than markers who marked only in English or in Chinese. Gender also had a significant impact on markers’ responses to the two scales – favouring males. Age was not a significant factor influencing markers’ perceived ease of use but older markers revealed a significantly higher level of acceptance than younger markers.     

When it comes round to marking assignments: how to impress and how to ‘distress’ lecturers …

What do lecturers look for when marking essays? What impresses them and what frustrates them? In this paper, we present the results of a survey which asked lecturers to address these questions. Thirty‐two lecturers responded to an email survey in which they listed the problems they found most frustrating when marking essays and the factors which most impressed them. This resulted in 206 comments related to sources of frustration and 139 comments listing factors which impress them. The comments were then coded into themes and ranked in order of importance by 16 lecturers from the original sample. The results highlight a range of issues that may be useful for lecturers when discussing assignments, and instructive for students when writing their assignments.     

“An inseparable aspect of citizenship”: marking a centenary in “universal and lifelong” adult education

Contradictory forces are operating in society. One model of the learning society sees it as futuristic, more democratic engaging citizens in the process but at the same time the structures of local government that enable democratic participation have been weakened in the United Kingdom. Drawing on work from his doctoral thesis, the author traces some of that decline.     

Scoring methods for multiple choice assessment in higher education – Is it still a matter of number right scoring or negative marking?

In higher education, a multiple choice test is a widely known format for measuring student's knowledge. The debate about the two most commonly used scoring methods for multiple choice assessment – number right scoring (NR) and negative marking (NM) – seems to be a never-ending story. Both NR scoring as NM do not seem to meet the expectations. However, available research hardly offers alternative methods. Clearly, there is a growing need to explore these alternative scoring methods in order to inform and support test designers. This review aims to present an overview of (alternative) scoring methods for multiple choice tests, in which strengths and weaknesses of each method are provided.     

After the Thunder Came the Rain

1.Socrates,the great thinker in ancient Greece,had a rude wife,who often lost her temper with him.     

the same与all the same

the same与all the same这两个短语仅一词之差,但意义及用法却大相径庭,极易混淆,提醒同学们要特别予以注意: I.the same 1)the same常用作形容词,修饰名词,意为“同一个(人、物或地点)”。例如: ①Li Mei and Zhang Hua are in the same class.(李梅和张华在同一个班 级。)     

How the Hare Got the Goat

1. A man bought a goat from the market and went home with it. A hare saw them and thought: "What a good goat that is! I must have it for myself." 一位男子从市场上买了一只羊带回家去。一只兔子见了想道:“多好的一只羊呀!我一定要把它搞到手。”