By Colleen Finnerty, History and Social Sciences Faculty Member, Class of 2011

Flourishing with Standards-Based Grading

Faculty-Submitted Note: This paper was written for the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania. The task was to address the following question: Considering positive psychology’s aim to enhance human flourishing worldwide, how can the field make a significant impact on promoting healthy environments and institutions?

Traditional grading systems use grades as rewards for desired behavior and learning practices. These rewards come in the form of point values and percentages, and students work to maximize points or percentage. Grades incentivize achievement while undermining the value of effort and progress in the learning process (Olson, 1996). Traditional grading systems also foster competition among students rather than promoting a learning community. Students see grading as a “zero-sum” practice such that one student’s success is connected to another student’s failure because of curves and grade distributions (Olson, 1996). A common practice among high schools in the United States is to establish a class rank using cumulative grade point averages. Class ranks are offered to college admissions officers and used to award prizes upon graduation such as valedictorian. However, class rank does little to actually motivate students to become lifelong learners and instead pits students against each other in the classroom (Guskey, 2013). Traditional grading systems discourage risk-taking and creative learning; former valedictorians are often hardworking in their respective professions, but they are not the ones to take chances and propose innovative ideas (Arnold, 1995). To promote flourishing among the next generation, schools have an obligation to examine their grading policies by using tenets of positive psychology. 

Educators who see themselves as tasked with identifying talented students do so with teaching, assessment, and grading practices that accentuate differences between students. Educators who see themselves as tasked with cultivating talent define clear learning objectives and work to ensure that all students have the opportunity to reach the learning objectives (Guskey, 2013). Students with higher levels of happiness and well-being are more likely to succeed in academic settings, feel more competent, and have more confidence than their peers (Clarke, 2020). To help students excel in the classroom, educational institutions need to implement policies and practices that enhance student well-being. Mandated use of standards-based grading (SBG) in primary and secondary schools would improve student well-being and develop lifelong learners.

Traditional grading systems are unreliable and highly variable. Starch & Elliot (1912) found 147 high school teachers assigned more than thirty different percentage grades, representing a spread of more than forty points, to the same paper. Even after training teachers in writing assessment, Brimi (2011) replicated this study, finding that the same paper received scores that ranged from failure to near perfect. Standards-based grading (SBG), an alternative mastery-based approach to grading, seeks to accurately reflect student learning and progress toward learning targets (O’Connor, 2011; 2018). SBG intentionally separates academic achievement from noncognitive factors so that grades accurately reflect student learning (Guskey et al., 2020). In SBG, teachers assess student proficiency on clearly defined learning targets (Selbach-Allen et al., 2020). Teachers detail learning targets using learning progressions, purposeful scales that identify an end goal, intermediary steps, and concrete guidance on how to advance levels of proficiency (Shephard, 2019). Teachers who implement SBG are required to frontload planning by identifying learning objectives and designing assessments through which students can demonstrate proficiency (Selbach-Allen et al., 2020). These time-consuming tasks serve as barriers to the implementation of standards-based grading, but the benefits of SBG for students well outweigh the costs. 

Students’ beliefs about their abilities significantly impact the ways in which they approach learning. Dweck (2008) defines a mindset as a self-perception, or a view of the self. Students with a fixed mindset believe that skills and capabilities are pre-determined traits that cannot be improved. Conversely, students with a growth mindset believe that time and effort can cultivate skills and capabilities (Dweck, 2008). Subtle messages from teachers influence the mindset that a student adopts for themselves. Praising ability promotes a fixed mindset while acknowledging strategies used and effort put forth in the process to reach success cultivates the development of a growth mindset (Yeager & Dweck, 2012). The use of SBG leads to a higher focus on learning content than on grades, thereby promoting a growth mindset and leading to increased resilience and persistence following mistakes or challenges (Knight & Cooper, 2019). Mindsets impact the ways in which people receive feedback. A fixed mindset heightens sensitivity to feedback about performance and ability. A growth mindset, however, increases focus on feedback about the process (Dweck, 2008). Helping students shift to a growth mindset through SBG does not automatically guarantee increased achievement. Research suggests that socioeconomic status mediates the relationship between growth mindset and achievement such that growth mindset only predicts achievement for those in higher brackets of socioeconomic status. However, regardless of socioeconomic status, a growth mindset is associated with greater engagement and increased motivation (King & Trinidad, 2021). For students from disadvantaged backgrounds, a growth mindset might be the first step to helping them maximize their opportunities in the classroom.

Flourishing in the classroom requires equal opportunities for all students to demonstrate proficiency on learning objectives (O’Connor, 2018). SBG removes the possibility that noncognitive factors such as personality and socio-emotional awareness are impacting the grade that a student receives in a particular course. Not only do noncognitive factors conflate student learning to make grades less meaningful, but they are also susceptible to high levels of teacher bias (Shepard, 2019). Implicit individual biases perpetuate well-documented achievement gaps and opportunity access in education. Point systems are particularly susceptible to the influence of biases because of teachers’ subjective interpretations of appropriate conduct and intent (Feldman, 2019). Furthermore, white teachers show a positive feedback bias for black students, such that their comments reflect more praise and less criticism for equivalent work submitted by a white student. Behavior such as this indicates that teachers unconsciously assess student work differently depending on a student’s race, hindering the opportunity for growth for racial and ethnic minority students (Harber et al., 2012). SBG decreases disproportionate failure rates among disadvantaged students and reduces grade inflation for privileged students (Feldman, 2019). In traditional grading systems, scores that are significantly below a student’s normal performance level have a significant impact on the student’s grade. In valuing the learning process over summarizing achievement, SBG fairly accommodates slip-ups and abnormal performances by accepting mistakes and offering opportunities for reassessment (Knight & Cooper, 2019). Fair classrooms foster supportive learning communities where students can thrive.

Societal structures such as schools undermine the innate, intrinsically motivated, autonomous behavior of children by incentivizing learning through systems of rewards and punishments, creating students that are driven by extrinsic motivators (Pink, 2014). Tapping into desires for autonomy, mastery, and purpose fosters intrinsic motivation (Pink, 2014). Traditional grading practices which use grades as rewards must be replaced by a new system that values the process as much as, if not more, than the outcome. SBG encourages students to focus on learning and mastery of skills rather than on the rewards of their learning (Selbach-Allen et al., 2020). Focusing on mastery fosters sustained effort to develop competence; focusing on performance leads to increased anxiety and avoidance of risk-taking out of fear of failure (Shepard, 2019). Higher levels of intrinsic motivation are correlated with more positive emotions, better performance, and increased mental health (Deci & Ryani, 2000). With a growth mindset and intrinsic motivation, feedback is meaningfully used to inform adjustments needed to reach goals. Learning progressions used in SBG provide systematic feedback that are time-efficient for teachers and more meaningful for students (Selbach-Allen et al., 2020). Student learning is detangled from noncognitive factors such as attendance, participation, and compliance with behavioral expectations (Guskey et al., 2020). Instead of being arbitrary numbers from which students derive their self-worth, grades become meaningful feedback about strengths and weaknesses that informs progress toward goals. 

In high schools across the United States, students often describe their grades as given to them by their teachers rather than earned through their demonstrated proficiency on learning objectives. While this semantic difference may not seem noteworthy, it has profound implications for the relationship between students and teachers and students and their learning. SBG offers an opportunity for students to converse with teachers about their learning of specific skills and progress on learning objectives rather than arguing about arbitrary point values (Selbach-Allen et al., 2020). Teachers become valued as trusted partners who want to help all students succeed. Students are taught how to be self-regulated learners who are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning by setting goals, planning action steps, focusing deliberately on a task, monitoring their progress, and maintaining motivation. Self-regulation is a transferable skill that is important to well-being beyond the realm of academics (Nilson, 2013). By promoting a growth mindset, fostering intrinsic motivation, and providing meaningful feedback about student learning, SBG promotes flourishing for all students regardless of their identity – schools should be implored to use it. 

Ms. Finnerty is a teacher in the History & Social Sciences department at St. Mark’s. She loves reading nonfiction books about psychological research, completing jigsaw puzzles, and spending time in the sunshine.

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