The table below lists and describes different current approach to grading and provides the historical background for each type of grading scheme.
Types of Grading Schemes: Definitions and Historical Background
| Type of Grading |
Definition |
Historical Background |
| Percentage grading |
Using a percentage scale (percent of 100), usually based on percent correct on exams and/or percent of points earned on assignments |
- Most common method in use in high schools and grading colleges c.1890–1910.
- Used today as a grading method or as a way of arriving at letter grades.
|
| Letter grading and variations |
Using a series of letters (often A, B, C, D, F) or letters with plusses and minuses as an ordered category scale - can be done in a norm-referenced (standards-based) manner |
- Yale used a four-category variations system in 1813.
- In the 1920 letter grading was seen as the solution to the problem of reliability of percentage grading (fewer or criterion-referenced categories) and was increasingly adopted.
|
| Norm-referenced grading |
Comparing students to each other; using class standing as the basis for assigning grades (usually letter grades) |
- Was advocated in early grading 1900s as scientific measurement.
- Educational disadvantages were known by the 1930s.
|
| Mastery grading |
Grading students as “masters” or “passers” when their attainment reaches a prespecified level, usually allowing different amounts of time for different students to reach mastery |
- Originating in the 1920s (e.g., Morrison, 1926) as a grading strategy, it became associated with the educational strategy of mastery learning (Bloom, Hastings, & Madaus, 1971).
|
| Pass/Fail |
Using a scale with two levels (pass and fail), sometimes in connection with mastery grading |
- In 1851, the University of Michigan experimented with pass/fail grading for classes.
|
| Standards (or Absolute-Standards) grading |
Originally, comparing student performance to a preestablished standard (level) of performance; currently, standards grading sometimes means grading with reference to a list of state or district content standards according to preestablished performance levels |
- Grading according to standards of performance has been championed since the grading 1930s as more educationally sound than norm-referenced grading.
- Current advocates of standards grading use the same principle but the term "standard” is now used for the criterion itself, not the level of performance.
- Since 2002, the scales on some standards-based report cards use the state accountability (proficiency) reporting categories instead of letters.
|
| Narrative grading |
Writing comments about students’ achievement, either in addition to or instead of using numbers or letters |
- Using a normal instructional practice (describing students’ work) in an assessment context.
|
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