Students’ grading and evaluation: a critical review

Abstract

In the last 20 years, schools have experienced many changes in academic standards, curriculum, and evaluation. Oftentimes the term evaluation frequently has a negative connotation to learners. This has adversely affected their performances and eventual final grading. Students rarely view their evaluations as opportunities for improvement even though better performance and public accountability are the principal aims of education. Instead, evaluations are seen by learners as hurdles grounded in threat. Evaluations are barriers that channel learner thinking and behavior, frequently motivated by fear of failure, with adverse consequences for those who fall short. Such learner perceptions contrast with faculty intent where evaluation is considered a tool needed to boost student competence and protect the public. Nonetheless, learners perceive the stakes to be high and so is their anxiety. Evaluation is a process to which most learners grudgingly submit to. It is rarely a process they seek and enjoy. This paper seeks to project educational evaluation as a tool, not as a weapon, for the purpose of improvement and mastery rather than enforcement. This outlook is expected to change the psychological climate toward constructive progress instead of apprehension.