Grading as a Cultural Practice: Implications for Student Mobility and High-Stakes Decision

• In Event: More Than a Mark: Understanding The Social and Cultural Dimensions and Consequences of Grading

Abstract

Objectives: Our study examined teachers’ perspectives of grading from two distinct learning cultures – Canada and China – to understand grading as a cross-cultural practice. These two countries were purposefully selected due to high degree of student mobility from China to Canada: Chinese students represent the largest international student population at all levels of education in Canada, occupying 28% of students in 2018 (CBIE, 2018). For these students, grades represent the primary currency in their mobility to seek admission to Canadian education and are the precursors to the high-stakes decisions of admission, placement, and immigration. As identified by Brookhart (2013), “grades are acknowledged to have multiple meanings and multiple contexts, including social and legal contexts” (p. 265). Given this complexity, the purposes of this study are of two-fold: (a) to compare Canadian and Chinese teachers’ perspectives of the values of grades, and (b) to examine the consistency and validity of grading practices across two learning cultures.

Perspectives: From a sociocultural perspective (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1998), grading decisions convey teachers’ values, beliefs and assumptions about teaching and learning, which are rooted in and shaped by their sociocultural and historical contexts. Brookhart and colleagues (2016) reviewed a century of grading studies, recognizing that previous research has focused on five aspects: reliability and validity, teacher perceptions and practices, grade composition, classroom grades in relation to large-scale assessments, and grading in higher education. Brookhart et al. (2016) further concluded that grades are influenced by various sources of evidence, contextual and external factors, and teachers’ values and beliefs. However, the vast majority of this research has been conducted through quantitative methods with even fewer studies conducted on grading practices across cultures (Author, 2018).

Methods: Qualitative data were collected from 35 secondary teachers from Ontario, Canada (n=18) and Guangdong, China (n=17) through semi-structured individual and group interviews. Interviews focused on how teachers constructed, interpreted, and valued grades within each context. Data were inductively analyzed for emergent themes using two raters (Patton, 2014). Data were first analyzed by country and then compared across countries.

Results: Findings indicated that teachers across both contexts primarily valued fairness as an overarching driver of decision-making when generating and considering grades even though teachers used various other terms and described their practices differently. Teachers related fairness to each of four emergent themes: (a) context and classroom management, (b) learning values: grades as academic enablers, (c) policy and external pressures, and (d) consequences of grade use. Together, these themes influenced teachers’ grading decisions and determined their grading practices. While these four themes were reflected in both countries’ datasets, the ways in which these themes were interpreted and enacted demonstrate both similarities and notable differences between the learning values of the two countries.

Significances: Given the increasing role of grades for high-stakes decisions and international mobilization, there is a need to explore and understand the validity of grades across contexts. This study presents one of the few that explores grading practices between learning cultures, presenting preliminary findings and implications that inform future research.

Authors

• Christopher DeLuca, Queen's University - Kingston

• Liying Cheng, Queen's University