Whose Grade is it Anyway?: Transitioning Engineering Courses to an Evidence-based Specifications Grading System

Abstract

This evidence-based practice paper documents the faculty experience of implementing specifications grading in different types of engineering courses. Rather than evolving from learning theory or research, current grading practices have primarily arisen from canonical practices created three centuries ago, originally created to rank students against each other. Such ranking or competition derived practices are out of alignment with modern outcomes-based engineering assessment practices. Specifications grading, an alternative, is a framework for assessment grounded in learning theory as well as student agency. The cornerstone of specifications grading is treating each assignment as a pass/fail marker of mastery using clearly defined and transparent criteria. With limited examples in engineering, this paper provides a clear introduction to specifications grading for the engineering education community and presents case studies of the use of specifications grading in engineering classrooms. Our three case studies include insights into transitioning a senior design course co-taught by technical communication faculty from rubric-based grading, transitioning a lower-level statistics class from bell-curve grading, and developing a new first-year engineering course. With these cases, we aspire to create a diverse set of advice and templates for other faculty to adopt in their classes to implement specification grading as well as common pitfalls to avoid when first adopting it.

Specifications Grading at Scale: Improved Letter Grades and Grading-Related Interactions in a Course with over 1,000 Students

“…Other faculty who have adopted specifications grading have reported similar student resistance associated with their lack of familiarity with the grading system. 1,4,5,10,20,34,35,43,62 Resistance to other alternative grading systems with similar characteristics to specifications grading, including contract grading and standards-based grading, is also attributed to the habituation of students to points-based grading systems. 83,84 Another possible reason that students are resistant to having to revise assignments rather than the potential to earn partial credit points may stem from their perception that needing to revise work is evidence of failure.…”

“…The number of times students may revise and resubmit assignments is commonly limited using a token system whereby students may exchange their limited number of tokens for resubmission. 1,[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] Examples of specifications grading systems implemented in college-level courses began appearing in peer-reviewed journals and in conference proceedings in 2016, and the number published each year continues to grow (Table 1). While published examples in journals, conference proceedings, and 50 conference abstracts include courses from nearly all disciplines, [18][19][20][21] including humanities, 15,22,23 social sciences, 4,24-26 education, 9,27 public administration, 28 health sciences, [29][30][31] and veterinary medicine, 16,32 STEM courses comprise the majority.…”

“…While published examples in journals, conference proceedings, and 50 conference abstracts include courses from nearly all disciplines, [18][19][20][21] including humanities, 15,22,23 social sciences, 4,24-26 education, 9,27 public administration, 28 health sciences, [29][30][31] and veterinary medicine, 16,32 STEM courses comprise the majority. Examples of specifications grading systems in STEM courses come from engineering, 5,10,12,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] computer science, [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] mathematics, 3,7,8,11,[50][51][52] biological sciences, 7,53-55 physics, 7,56 and chemistry. 1,6,7,14,…”

Specifications Grading at Scale: Improved Letter Grades and Grading-Related Interactions in a Course with over 1,000 Students

“…See the Supporting Information for examples from non-STEM disciplines. Examples of specifications grading systems in STEM courses in peer-reviewed journals and conference papers come from engineering, [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] computer science, [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] mathematics, [25][26][27][28][29][30][31] biological sciences, 25,[32][33][34] physics, 25,35 and chemistry. 1,25,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43] In the chemistry discipline, our pilot study is the only publication that specifically describes implementing specifications grading in a standalone laboratory course.…”

Journey Continues: Piloting Competency-based Assessment in a First-year Engineering Course on Ethics, Communication, and Creative Problem Solving

“…In this way, specification grading is able to bring the spirit of competency-based assessment to the practicality of norm-based university GPA systems. This York University; June 19 -22, 2022 -3 of 6 -Peer reviewed approach has been implemented in engineering courses focused on technical subjects in the past and have been shown to be highly effective [11]. To our knowledge, this approach has not been applied to courses teaching humanistic and transferable skills such as ours, which is the novelty of our work.…”