Quantitative Studies of K–12 Report Card Grades and Related Educational Outcomes

• In Event: 100 Years of Grading Research: Meaning and Value in the Most Common Educational Measure

Abstract

Objective: To review quantitative studies of the composition of K-12 report card grades, focusing on grade meaning. Many studies correlate standardized test scores and teacher assigned grades or marks. More recent studies consider the factors grades assess beyond the achievement represented by standardized tests. Finally, research shows the relationship of grades to high school graduation.
Method and Data Sources. Peer-reviewed studies conducted from 1915 to 2014 were located in JSTOR, ERIC and Educational Full Text Wilson Web using search strings such as “(grades OR marks) AND (model* OR relationship OR correlation OR association OR factor)”. and reviewed and if they met three criteria: (a) examined the relationship of K-12 grades to schooling outcomes, (b) used quantitative methods, and (c) examined data from actual student assessments. Reference lists of the most relevant articles were reviewed as well. This resulted in 90 articles for review.
Results and Conclusions. Early studies of the relationship between grades and standardized assessment results examined the relationship between grades and intelligence tests (Unzicker, 1925). Subsequent studies moved to comparing grades to standardized achievement tests (Carter, 1952; Dickinson, 1925; Heilman, 1928; Kertes, 1932; Moore, 1939). Investigations from the late 20th century and into the 21st extended the research to include larger, more representative samples and use more modern standardized tests and methods (Brennan, Kim, Wenz-Gross, & Siperstein, 2001; Woodruff & Ziomek, 2004). The correlation between grades and test scores is and always has been relatively modest, in the .5 range; about 25 percent of the variation in the grades teachers assign is attributable to a trait comparable to the trait measured by standardized tests (Bowers, 2011).
Present evidence suggests grades are a multidimensional measure of cognitive factors amenable to standardized testing and non-cognitive factors representing substantive engagement in the schooling process (Farkas, Grobe, Sheehan, & Shaun, 1990; Kelly, 2008; Miner, 1967; Sobel, 1936; Willingham, Pollack & Lewis (2002). Recent studies have used large data sets (Bowers, 2009, 2011; Casillas et al., 2012; Cliffordson, 2008; Duckworth, Quinn, & Tsukayama, 2012; Klapp Lekholm, 2011; Klapp Lekholm & Cliffordson, 2008, 2009; Thorsen, 2014; Thorsen & Cliffordson, 2012). Whether this is what grades should measure is a matter of debate.
Teacher assigned grades predict graduation from high school (Bowers, 2014) and transition from high school to college (Atkinson & Geiser, 2009; Cliffordson, 2008). Grades predict student graduation or dropping out (Fitzsimmons, Cheever, ; (Gleason & Dynarski, 2002Leonard, & Macunovich, 1969; Lloyd, 1974, 1978; Pallas, 1989; Voss, Wendling, & Elliott, 1966) even in the presence of other variables ((Allensworth, 2013; Alexander, Entwisle, & Kabbani, 2001; Barrington & Hendricks, 1989; Bowers, 2010; Cairns, Cairns, & Neckerman, 1989; Ekstrom, Goertz, Pollack, & Rock, 1986; Ensminger & Slusarcick, 1992; Finn, 1989; Hargis, 1990; Jimerson, Egeland, Sroufe, & Carlson, 2000; Morris, Ehren, & Lenz, 1991; Pallas, 2003; Roderick & Camburn, 1999; Rumberger, 1987; Rumberger & Palardy, 2005; Troob, 1985).

Author

• Alex J. Bowers, Teachers College, Columbia University