The task of grading and reporting students’ progress cannot be separated from the procedures adopted in assessing students’ learning. If instructional objectives are well defined in terms of behavioural or performance terms and relevant tests and other assessment procedures are properly used, grading and reporting become a matter of summarizing the results and presenting them in understandable form. Reporting students’ progress is difficult especially when data is represented in single letter-grade system or numerical value (Linn & Gronlund, 2000).
Assigning grades and making referrals are decisions that require information about individual students. In contrast, curricular and instructional decisions require information about groups of students, quite often about entire classrooms or schools (Linn & Gronlund, 2000).
There are three primary purposes of grading students. First, grades are the primary currency for exchange of many of the opportunities and rewards our society has to offer. Grades can be exchanged for such diverse entities as adult approval, public recognition, college and university admission etc. To deprive students of grades means to deprive them of rewards and opportunities. Second, teachers become habitual of assessing their students’ learning in grades, and if teachers don’t award grades, the students might not well know about their learning progress. Third, grading students motivate them. Grades can serve as incentives, and for many students incentives serve a motivating function.
The different functions of grading and reporting systems are given as under:
1. Instructional uses
The focus of grading and reporting should be the student improvement in learning. This is most likely occur when the report: a) clarifies the instructional objectives; b) indicates the student’s strengths and weaknesses in learning; c) provides information concerning the student’s personal and social development; and d) contributes to student’s motivation.
The improvement of student learning is probably best achieved by the day-to-day assessments of learning and the feedback from tests and other assessment procedures. A portfolio of work developed during the academic year can be displayed to indicate student’s strengths and weaknesses periodically.
Periodic progress reports can contribute to student motivation by providing short-term goals and knowledge of results. Both are essential features of essential learning. Well-designed progress reports can also help in evaluating instructional procedures by identifying areas need revision. When the reports of majority of students indicate poor progress, it may infer that there is a need to modify the instructional objectives.
2. Feedback to students
Grading and reporting test results to the students have been an on-going practice in all the educational institutions of the world. The mechanism or strategy may differ from country to country or institution to institution but each institution observes this practice in any way. Reporting test scores to students has a number of advantages for them. As the students move up through the grades, the usefulness of the test scores for personal academic planning and self-assessment increases. For most students, the scores provide feedback about how much they know and how effective their efforts to learn have been. They can know their strengths and areas need for special attention. Such feedback is essential if students are expected to be partners in managing their own instructional time and effort. These results help them to make good decisions for their future professional development.
Teachers use a variety of strategies to help students become independent learners who are able to take an increasing responsibility for their own school progress. Self-assessment is a significant aspect of self-guided learning, and the reporting of test results can be an integral part of the procedures teachers use to promote self-assessment. Test results help students to identify areas need for improvement, areas in which progress has been strong, and areas in which continued strong effort will help maintain high levels of achievement. Test results can be used with information from teacher’s assessments to help students set their own instructional goals, decide how they will allocate their time, and determine priorities for improving skills such as reading, writing, speaking, and problem solving. When students are given their own test results, they can learn about self-assessment while doing actual self-assessment. (Iowa Testing Programs, 2011).
Grading and reporting results also provide students an opportunity for developing an awareness of how they are growing in various skill areas. Self-assessment begins with self-monitoring, a skill most children have begun developing well before coming to kindergarten.
3. Administrative and guidance uses
Grades and progress reports serve a number of administrative functions. For example, they are used for determining promotion and graduation, awarding honours, determining sports eligibility of students, and reporting to other institutions and employers. For most administrative purposes, a single letter-grade is typically required, but of course, technically single letter-grade does not truly interpret student’s assessment.
Guidance and Counseling officers use grades and reports on student’s achievement, along with other information, to help students make realistic educational and vocational plans. Reports that include ratings on personal and social characteristics are also useful in helping students with adjustment problems.
Informing parents about their children’s performance
Parents are often overwhelmed by the grades and test reports they receive from school
personnel. In order to establish a true partnership between parents and teachers, it is essential that information about student progress be communicated clearly, respectfully and accurately. Test results should be provided to parents using; a) simple, clear language free from educational and test jargon, and b) explanation of the purpose of the tests used (Canter, 1998).
Most of the time parents are either ignored or least involved to let them aware of the progress of their children. To strengthen connection between home and school parents need to receive comprehensive information about their children achievement. If parents do not understand the tests given to their children, the scores, and how the results are used to make decisions about their children, they are prohibited from helping their children learn and making decisions.
According to Kearney (1983), the lack of information provided to consumers about test data has sweeping and negative consequences. He states;
Individual student needs are not met, parents are not kept fully informed of student progress, curricular needs are not discovered and corrected, and the results are not reported to various audiences that need to receive this information and need to know what is being done with the information.
In some countries, there are prescribed policies for grading and reporting test results to the parents. For example, Michigan Educational Assessment Policy (MEAP) is revised periodically in view of parents’ suggestions and feedback. MEAP consists of criterion-referenced tests, primarily in mathematics and reading, that are administered each year to all fourth, seventh and tenth graders. MEAP recommends that policy makers at state and local levels must develop strong linkages to create, implement and monitor effective reporting practices. (Barber, Paris, Evans, & Gadsden, 1992).
Without any doubt, it is more effective to talk parents to face about their children’s scores than to send a score report home for them to interpret on their own. For a variety of reasons, a parent-teacher or parent-student-teacher conference offers an excellent occasion for teachers to provide and interpret those results to the parents.
1. Teachers tend to be more knowledgeable than parents about tests and the types of scores being interpreted.
2. Teachers can make numerous observations of their student’s work and consequently substantiate the results. In-consistencies between test scores and classroom performance can be noted and discussed.
3. Teachers possess work samples that can be used to illustrate the type of classroom work the student has done. Portfolios can be used to illustrate strengths and to explain where improvements are needed.
4. Teachers may be aware of special circumstances that may have influenced the scores, either positively or negatively, to misrepresent the students’ achievement level.
5. Parents have a chance to ask questions about points of misunderstanding or about how they can work. The student and the teacher in addressing apparent weaknesses and in capitalizing on strengths wherever possible, test scores should be given to the parents at the school. (Iowa Testing Program, 2011).
Under the Act of 1998, schools are required to regularly evaluate students and periodically report to parents on the results of the evaluation, but in specific terms, the NCCA guidelines make a recommendation that schools should report twice annually to parents – one towards the end of 1st term or beginning of 2nd term, and the other towards the end of school year.
Under existing data protection legislation, parents have a statutory right to obtain scores which their children have obtained in standardized tests. NCCA have developed a set of reports card templates to be used by schools in communicating with parents and taken in conjunction with the Circular 0138 which was issued by the Department of Education in 2006.
In a case study conducted in the US context it was found that ‘the school should be a source for parents, it should not dictate to parents what their role should be’. In other words, the school should respect all parents and appreciate the experiences and individual strengths they offer their children.
Assigning grades and making referrals are decisions that require information about individual students. In contrast, curricular and instructional decisions require information about groups of students, quite often about entire classrooms or schools (Linn & Gronlund, 2000).
There are three primary purposes of grading students. First, grades are the primary currency for exchange of many of the opportunities and rewards our society has to offer. Grades can be exchanged for such diverse entities as adult approval, public recognition, college and university admission etc. To deprive students of grades means to deprive them of rewards and opportunities. Second, teachers become habitual of assessing their students’ learning in grades, and if teachers don’t award grades, the students might not well know about their learning progress. Third, grading students motivate them. Grades can serve as incentives, and for many students incentives serve a motivating function.
The different functions of grading and reporting systems are given as under:
1. Instructional uses
The focus of grading and reporting should be the student improvement in learning. This is most likely occur when the report: a) clarifies the instructional objectives; b) indicates the student’s strengths and weaknesses in learning; c) provides information concerning the student’s personal and social development; and d) contributes to student’s motivation.
The improvement of student learning is probably best achieved by the day-to-day assessments of learning and the feedback from tests and other assessment procedures. A portfolio of work developed during the academic year can be displayed to indicate student’s strengths and weaknesses periodically.
Periodic progress reports can contribute to student motivation by providing short-term goals and knowledge of results. Both are essential features of essential learning. Well-designed progress reports can also help in evaluating instructional procedures by identifying areas need revision. When the reports of majority of students indicate poor progress, it may infer that there is a need to modify the instructional objectives.
2. Feedback to students
Grading and reporting test results to the students have been an on-going practice in all the educational institutions of the world. The mechanism or strategy may differ from country to country or institution to institution but each institution observes this practice in any way. Reporting test scores to students has a number of advantages for them. As the students move up through the grades, the usefulness of the test scores for personal academic planning and self-assessment increases. For most students, the scores provide feedback about how much they know and how effective their efforts to learn have been. They can know their strengths and areas need for special attention. Such feedback is essential if students are expected to be partners in managing their own instructional time and effort. These results help them to make good decisions for their future professional development.
Teachers use a variety of strategies to help students become independent learners who are able to take an increasing responsibility for their own school progress. Self-assessment is a significant aspect of self-guided learning, and the reporting of test results can be an integral part of the procedures teachers use to promote self-assessment. Test results help students to identify areas need for improvement, areas in which progress has been strong, and areas in which continued strong effort will help maintain high levels of achievement. Test results can be used with information from teacher’s assessments to help students set their own instructional goals, decide how they will allocate their time, and determine priorities for improving skills such as reading, writing, speaking, and problem solving. When students are given their own test results, they can learn about self-assessment while doing actual self-assessment. (Iowa Testing Programs, 2011).
Grading and reporting results also provide students an opportunity for developing an awareness of how they are growing in various skill areas. Self-assessment begins with self-monitoring, a skill most children have begun developing well before coming to kindergarten.
3. Administrative and guidance uses
Grades and progress reports serve a number of administrative functions. For example, they are used for determining promotion and graduation, awarding honours, determining sports eligibility of students, and reporting to other institutions and employers. For most administrative purposes, a single letter-grade is typically required, but of course, technically single letter-grade does not truly interpret student’s assessment.
Guidance and Counseling officers use grades and reports on student’s achievement, along with other information, to help students make realistic educational and vocational plans. Reports that include ratings on personal and social characteristics are also useful in helping students with adjustment problems.
Informing parents about their children’s performance
Parents are often overwhelmed by the grades and test reports they receive from school
personnel. In order to establish a true partnership between parents and teachers, it is essential that information about student progress be communicated clearly, respectfully and accurately. Test results should be provided to parents using; a) simple, clear language free from educational and test jargon, and b) explanation of the purpose of the tests used (Canter, 1998).
Most of the time parents are either ignored or least involved to let them aware of the progress of their children. To strengthen connection between home and school parents need to receive comprehensive information about their children achievement. If parents do not understand the tests given to their children, the scores, and how the results are used to make decisions about their children, they are prohibited from helping their children learn and making decisions.
According to Kearney (1983), the lack of information provided to consumers about test data has sweeping and negative consequences. He states;
Individual student needs are not met, parents are not kept fully informed of student progress, curricular needs are not discovered and corrected, and the results are not reported to various audiences that need to receive this information and need to know what is being done with the information.
In some countries, there are prescribed policies for grading and reporting test results to the parents. For example, Michigan Educational Assessment Policy (MEAP) is revised periodically in view of parents’ suggestions and feedback. MEAP consists of criterion-referenced tests, primarily in mathematics and reading, that are administered each year to all fourth, seventh and tenth graders. MEAP recommends that policy makers at state and local levels must develop strong linkages to create, implement and monitor effective reporting practices. (Barber, Paris, Evans, & Gadsden, 1992).
Without any doubt, it is more effective to talk parents to face about their children’s scores than to send a score report home for them to interpret on their own. For a variety of reasons, a parent-teacher or parent-student-teacher conference offers an excellent occasion for teachers to provide and interpret those results to the parents.
1. Teachers tend to be more knowledgeable than parents about tests and the types of scores being interpreted.
2. Teachers can make numerous observations of their student’s work and consequently substantiate the results. In-consistencies between test scores and classroom performance can be noted and discussed.
3. Teachers possess work samples that can be used to illustrate the type of classroom work the student has done. Portfolios can be used to illustrate strengths and to explain where improvements are needed.
4. Teachers may be aware of special circumstances that may have influenced the scores, either positively or negatively, to misrepresent the students’ achievement level.
5. Parents have a chance to ask questions about points of misunderstanding or about how they can work. The student and the teacher in addressing apparent weaknesses and in capitalizing on strengths wherever possible, test scores should be given to the parents at the school. (Iowa Testing Program, 2011).
Under the Act of 1998, schools are required to regularly evaluate students and periodically report to parents on the results of the evaluation, but in specific terms, the NCCA guidelines make a recommendation that schools should report twice annually to parents – one towards the end of 1st term or beginning of 2nd term, and the other towards the end of school year.
Under existing data protection legislation, parents have a statutory right to obtain scores which their children have obtained in standardized tests. NCCA have developed a set of reports card templates to be used by schools in communicating with parents and taken in conjunction with the Circular 0138 which was issued by the Department of Education in 2006.
In a case study conducted in the US context it was found that ‘the school should be a source for parents, it should not dictate to parents what their role should be’. In other words, the school should respect all parents and appreciate the experiences and individual strengths they offer their children.
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