Teachers’ evaluations and students’ achievement: a ‘deviation from the reference’ analysis

Abstract

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Several studies show that teachers make use of grading practices to affect students' effort and achievement. Generally linearity is assumed in the grading equation, while it is everyone's experience that grading practices are frequently non-linear. Representing grading practices as linear can be misleading both from a descriptive and a prescriptive viewpoint. Here we propose to identify grading practices as 'deviations from a reference', which is a fully non-parametric criterion, and measure their effects on achievement based on this classification. To show the effectiveness of our approach, we apply the methodology to a data-set on Italian lower secondary school. Education Economics2009, 1-21, iFirst

The stricter the better? The impact of early teacher grading standards on students’ competences development and academic track enrollment

“…Some studies on Norway find that lower secondary school students who are exposed to harder grading standards perform better in mathematics (Bonesrønning 1999;2004). The same results are confirmed by the study conducted by Iacus & Porro (2008) on a local sample of 20 lower secondary schools in Lombardy, an Italian region, in three subjects (language, science and mathematics). Concerning the impact of grading standards on students' educational choices at earlier educational stages, empirical research is even scarcer.…”

“…suggest that through grading practices, and grading standards, teachers can manipulate students' effort and motivation: higher standards may induce students to increment their effort in order to satisfy teachers' requirements if they aspire to get a good grade, and, as a consequence, students can boost their competences development (Betts & Grogger 2003;Iacus & Porro 2008) and more generally they can benefit in terms of educational outcomes and choices. On the other hand, if teachers have grading standards that are too high to reach, it can induce students to give up, and this may have a detrimental effect on students' educational outcomes.…”

“…The basic mechanism behind the effect of grading standards is thought to be related to their influence on students' motivation and effort (Iacus & Porro 2008). In this regard, some studies focused on how students' effort respond to being graded and ranked (Levitt et al 2012;Jalava et al 2015).…”

“…Correa and Gruver (1987) conceptualize grades as a fundamental parameter in the students' utility function. Since students care about teacher's perception of their achievement, students' effort and achievement may be affected by how teacher decide to grade students (Iacus & Porro 2008). Indeed, teachers can decide to adopt certain grading standards, that is the ability level needed by students in order to get a specific grade, or, in other words, how stringently teachers assess their students.…”

“…Despite the large public debate on teachers' adoption and implementation of specific grading practices, especially in primary education, little empirical research focuses on how teacher can influence students' effort and motivation adopting specific grading standards, and on the associated educational consequences. On one side, students whose teacher adopts higher grading standards are those who need to put more effort and to study more if they want to achieve a good grade, and as a consequence, students might benefit in the long run in terms of competences (Iacus & Porro 2008). On the other side, higher grading standards may discourage students if the level of ability needed for achieving a good grade is too high.…”