The Motivational Consequences of Grading Policies: A Multilevel, Equity-Focused Interpretation

• In Event: Course Grade Policies: What are the Consequences for Motivation, Achievement, and Equity?

Abstract

Academic feedback is ubiquitous (Nicolai et al., 2023) and occurs in many forms. Grades are the most common (Brookhart et al., 2016), but they occur alongside higher-level, structural feedback all the way down to feedback that occurs during interpersonal interactions. Prior work indicates that grades have powerful (and sometimes negative) implications for shaping motivation and academic trajectories (Koenka et al., 2021). Grades also often contain biases based on race, ethnicity, gender, disability, and/or learning differences (Malouff & Thorsteinsson, 2016). Despite these contributions from prior literature, how grades shape motivation alongside other feedback that students are constantly receiving is poorly understood, which presents a decontextualized picture of this relation. Moreover, despite the above-mentioned biases, little work has explored the interplay between grades, motivation, and equity. There is also wide variation in how students are graded, which likely influences their impact. Grading policies reflect an important source of this variation, yet their motivational consequences remain underexplored. To develop a more nuanced understanding, it is thus essential to consider the interplay between grading policies and motivation in the context of feedback more holistically through a conceptually-grounded, equity-focused lens. Therefore, aligned with calls to prioritize policy in motivation research (Anderman, 2020), the objectives of this review were to:

1. Present a conceptual model of feedback and motivation that centers feedback across ecological levels and implications for equity (Figure 2; Table 1).

2. Use our model as a lens for situating the interplay between grading policy, motivation, and equity. We focus on one policy in particular: revision opportunities (the option to revise an assignment).

We conducted a narrative review (Baumeister & Leary, 1995), and integrated across five social-cognitive theories of motivation (Wigfield & Koenka, 2020), a situative perspective of motivation (Nolen, 2020), and critical race theory (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) to ground our model.

Objective 1. We propose that feedback experiences span four ecological levels: students typically receive information about their performance and/or how others perceive their ability through (1) policy, (2) curriculum, (3) assessment, and (4) interpersonal interactions.

Objective 2. We situate grading policies as an example of feedback delivered through assessment; however, they also illustrate the interrelated nature of these levels given that some practices can also function as feedback at the policy level. Drawing from the small literature on the motivational consequences of revision opportunities, we argue that this policy reflects untapped potential for (a) more effectively promoting internal forms of motivation and (b) doing so more equitably relative to their more typical counterpart policies (see “Assessment” in Table 1). However, this policy is not a panacea: it must be implemented in a broader feedback context that supports motivation and affirms all social identities. Taken together, we introduce the first known model to synthesize feedback across levels, which provides a more contextualized lens for interpreting prior research on the motivational consequences of grading policy. Therefore, it provides a springboard for future research that (a) considers grading policies in tandem with other feedback experiences and (b) centers the experiences of and implications for minoritized learners.

Authors

• Alison C. Koenka, University of Oklahoma

• Korinthia D. Nicolai, Indiana University

• Destini N. Braxton, University of Virginia

• Margaret K. Powers, Washington University in St. Louis

• Danielle N. Berry, University of Oklahoma

• Sandra Graham, University of California - Los Angeles

• Kanvarbir Gill, University of Oklahoma