Assessment is Grading

I. How much do we hate the language of assessment?

As many of you know, about two weeks ago I took a really ungraceful nosedive off the steps in front of the Public Affairs Office (Ok the step is like 3 inches off the ground). As a result I had some ugly scrapes on my legs and both of my knees were bruised badly. It was not pretty. And, since at my undisclosed age, discretion really is the better part of valor, I had to refrain from exercise for a couple of weeks while my knees healed. I have been unable to do yoga--which keeps me sane--and I have been unable to use the elliptical machines in the KAC (which at the best of times are hard on my creaky old knees). That meant I have been unable to keep up with my assessment reading, which is what I usually read when I am on the machines (mostly because the pages will lay flat and so it's a hands-free read).

I got back to it yesterday and just about wanted to pull out my fingernails. One of the reasons I have adopted the motto "Resist the Cult" for Kenyon's reaccreditation is that the language in which the assessment industry is swathed is jargon ridden, bureaucratic, and often times completely empty of content. I'd quote some examples, but let me just say that you should be thankful that I am going to cut through the mush and try to give you some straight talk on assessment. Assessment is really not brain surgery. It isn't even particularly innovative. It has been around as long as teaching has. It's called grading.

There isn't a single soul on this campus who thinks that students should not be judged for the work that they produce. And yet we resist assessment with all of our might; we've been dragging our collective (and individual) feet for nearly twenty years. Why? Because assessment feels to us like a task imposed from outside the institution, it feels like a lot of work, it's unfamiliar and alien sounding, while grading is our definition of what we do. As a faculty, we can spend months, even years, arguing about grade inflation but don't want to spend an hour talking about what we expect our students to learn and how we might measure it? So why not work from our strengths? Why not try to see the connections between grading and assessment and use them to build an assessment program that has a chance of working. We might actually at the same time improve our grading and then we can stop having discussions about grade inflation (which would make me really happy).

2. Assessment really is grading.

I think those in the assessment movement have done us a disservice by constantly telling us that assessment isn't grading. What repels most faculty about assessment is a sense that this is something new and different, that it will be complicated, that it will take a lot of time, and that no one will ever look at it or use it. Fair enough; there are a lot of days I feel the same way. But let's ask, what are the ways in which grading is assessment? When we grade we evaluate student learning. We give a test and the test covers those things we want students to know. We have them write an essay and we evaluate that essay based on the extent to which it demonstrate that the students understand what we want them to understand. Even if we don't articulate a set of "learning objectives" for our assignments, we still do have them in mind. When we evaluate a test, a quiz, a paper, an art project, a musical composition, we assess student learning. If I assign a paper and most of the student do poorly on it, you can bet I am asking myself what went wrong? I am looking to see what I need to change (either the assignment or the teaching) so that the students have a better chance of succeeding. I am sure there isn't one of us who doesn't do the same. That's "closing the feedback loop." I have taken something I've learned from the assessment (the test, paper, or whatever) and used it to improve my teaching and hence the students' chances of learning.

3. How is Assessment Different from Grading?

Fair question Virginia. The assessment literature I am slogging through all stresses how different assessment is from grading. And to some extent that's true. But the basic principles really are the same. The difference is the scale. First of all a grade really isn't evaluation of student learning; it's a reification of the evaluation that is going on. I take all the things I want a student to learn from an assignment (and there might be dozens of things ranging from content to skills) and I cram them willy-nilly into one letter.

Let's take the case of three students, all receiving grades of C+ on a paper. One student receives a C+ because, although well-researched and with a strong thesis, the paper is poorly executed with ill-conceived paragraphs, numerous grammatical errors, and a significant number of typos. Student 2 receives a C+ because, although well researched, the paper fails to move from a summary to a thesis that exhibits a creative and analytical response to the research. Student three receives a C+ because, although well argued and demonstrating true creative flair, the student fails to do enough research (a stated component of the assignment). The grades reflect an assessment, but the grade alone cannot tell us which of the learning objectives embedded in it have been achieved and which have not. I count something like six different learning objectives in the example above, all of which are incorporated into that C+. I really think that is a weakness of grading and one that should give us pause. The students who receive that C+ may never figure out which of the learning objectives they failed to demonstrate (at least the grade can't tell them).

Assessment asks us to be able to differentiate among those three C+. That is it focuses on teasing out and evaluating the objectives that underlie our assignments (the things we want students to learn).

Another critical difference between grading and assessment is that grading is primarily directed toward the individual student. We rarely consider the collective performance of all students in a class, department, or division. The one place where we do tend to look at student grades collectively is in examining grade inflation. So our grade inflation discussion is also connected to questions of assessment. But just as an individual grade cannot tell us about an individual student's learning, our grade inflation statistics cannot tell us collectively what students in the astrology department are learning compared to students in the potions department or the students in magical creature because the grade inflation statistics are as reified as the original grades upon which they were based.

So one benefit we might get from thinking about assessment is a more precise way of evaluating student learning? How can we do that? Well that will have to wait for the next blog. As I don't want this post to get too long, I'll leave you with the cliffhanger.

In my next blog I will continue this conversation, addressing how we might creatively think about assessment and (in keeping with the philosophy of "what's in it for me") how we can turn assessment to our own ends. We might even ask whether assessment could make the task of grading a little easier (since most of us find grading the most difficult part of our teaching).

Meanwhile drop me a line in response and, if you see me in the KAC on the elliptical say hi, introduce yourself, and rescue me from the turgid prose. I'd so rather be reading Louise Erdrich.