Report on Grading System in Academic Institutions

The grading scheme is a mechanism used by the instructors to determine the instructional success of the pupil. However, every academic institution is now adopting a consistent grading system. Grade scales like A, B, C, etc. are used to measure the student's success in a class, tutorial or final exam. Since the ranking system has been adopted, each degree includes several percentages or points (Muñoz and Guskey).

Grading system in academic institutions may compel a student to accept a definition. The belief that understanding or not understanding a topic has implications will inspire students to want and appreciate. It will push students to take action to grasp a problem rather than only open themselves to it. Grades are a result of experience, and a pupil can take longer and more time to understand a term. Any students get bad grades because they're not that good at learning and because they have not got an idea. Since students pass the exam, it is likely that after their certification, an individual who is a weak test participant fails.

During the 1930s majority of schools started to switch over to letters to grade in schools. The grading system that is known for the utility of letters experimented somewhere between 1912 and 1950. Today mostly 70% of educational institutes utilise the grading system to rate performances of students. Although the topic today is becoming debatable, the grading system is still considered to be the best demonstrator of student's academic performance in many parts of the world (Nagel).

Letter credentials are firmly embedded in the system of education. Students are measured using the grade letter scale or their nearest association, the grade point average, from primary school up to graduate school. Grades offer a relatively simple approach to the complicated problem of measuring student health, success and development in several different ways. All issues in school seem to be resolved by the all-powerful grades. This is the most robust bargaining tool for educators, at once coveted in a single uncompromising letter by pupils, a formidable weapon for the judge, jury and executioner.

Grading system in schools and colleges has made the work easier for teachers and professors to assess the learning of students. Grading system in educational institutions provides a platform to the educational organisations through a set of questionnaires that are needed to be answered by the student (Wojciechowski and Cellary). The answers of students thus are assessed by teachers to ensure that students have precisely learned the intended concepts and theories. Before the grading system, there were no authentic systems to evaluate the performances of students in educational organisations. The grading system was introduced in the twentieth century, and before the twentieth century, there was no such concept of measuring the achievements of students through any particular mechanism.

At the outset of the eighteenth century, Ezra Stiles attempted to measure the performances of students at Yale University. He established different categories of students within a class. The types included were based on the achievements of students. The primary categories were named in Latin terms as optimi, second optimi, pejores, and inferiors. These categories used to include brilliant students in optimi category, less intelligent students in the second optimi, and the students who performed adversely were categorised in pejores and inferiors categories (Chen and Hoshower). The rise of measuring student's performances within educational institutions occurred in the late eighteenth century, and after two centuries, the grading system experimented in educational institutes of the United States of America.

Measuring the performances of students is not an easy task in educational or academic institutes. The history of grading system suggests that it took two centuries to develop an authentic and accurate method for measuring the performances of students. The adaptation of the grading system, consequently, is more accessible for educational organisations to measure the student's learning and performance conveniently. The grading system makes a complicated task easy; for this reason, numerous academic organisations across the globe have adopted the letter system of grading to showcase the student's performances and learning outcomes efficiently and comprehensively. Migrating to other methods of judging and evaluating the accomplishments of students would not be an easy task for educational institutes. Consequently, most of the educational organisations consider the grading system an appropriate technique to measure the performances of students.

There are still no authentic and accurate alternatives available to the grading system in the educational context. The grading system has been utilised by academic organisations for more than eight decades (Rodrigues and Oliveira). Parents and caregivers to students have very less complains about the grading system regardless of its effectiveness in measuring the performances of students in the educational context. Accordingly, the schools and colleges all over the world favour the utility of grading system to satisfy the parents and caregivers of students. Latest performance measuring tools are somewhat challenging to understand for parents and teachers. Assessing the latest tools to measure the performances of students may need specialised training of parents and teachers.

Numerous schools that are used to implement the traditional grading system are reluctant to afford these pieces of training. Consequently, the schools and colleges that have been applying traditional or conventional grading techniques are satisfied with their current approach to grade students (Delvaux et al.). Any new approach and technique to grade students will be costly for schools and colleges across the world, and on the other hand, it must be difficult for numerous academic institutes to migrate to a new system without understanding the authenticity and accuracy of new grading systems.

Most of the schools, colleges, and universities implement traditional or conventional grading system to measure the performances of students for the reason of its ease and convenience. The traditional grading system that measures the accomplishments of students in letters and symbols is easy to adapt for numerous educational institutes. The prime reason for the adaptation of such system is that traditional grading system is considered to make the complex tasks of school administration easy and convenient regardless of its effectiveness and efficiency in measuring the performance of students.

The effect of the grading system on students is significant. Grades play an essential role in the minds of students (Sung et al.). The grading system is based on rewarding and punitive mechanisms. Consequently, students and learners are usually well aware of the grades and their outcomes in their educational journey. A student who gets good grades at the end of the academic year is advanced into new classes. Parents also play a vital role in this context. Numerous parents across the world visit the schools, colleges and universities just for the sake of improvement of their children's grades. On the other hand, students tend to improve their educational performances to improve their grades. Improving grades will eventually prevent them from their parent's aggressiveness at home.

Students try to learn the concepts for the sake of improving grades. Numerous arguments support that having a grading system boosts the cognitive learning of students, at least the students try to learn something for the sake of grades. Students rate grading system substantially as they consider to pass the exam or test more important than getting involved in other time-consuming activities. Even if a student is well-informed about a particular concept, he will tend to revise and learn the concept more aggressively to pass the test or exam that will eventually impact the grade of students. Memorising concepts will ultimately develop a sense of learning in students (Griff and Matter). Grading system often motivates the students to perform and learn better than before this is another reason for the adaptation of the traditional or conventional grading system by numerous schools, colleges, and universities across the globe.

Students get motivation from the grades as it is a figurative illustration of their performances at schools, colleges, and universities. The students can observe their progress against their efforts in reading. If aggressive efforts of students in learning school concepts tend to improve their grades at schools, they will tend to learn more aggressively to improve their grades further. A student would not desire to bring its school grades down just for the sake of enjoyment. Instead, the student would put more and more efforts in studies to improve his grades to earn respect both at school and at home. Parents also tend to motivate students to grab good grades at school, college, or university. The grading system keeps the student inspired and motivated, and he tries to achieve better grades than before.

Grading system may also keep the students more focused on studies. If a student is unable to understand a particular concept, he will try to memorise the concept to perform better in exams or tests to gain an improved grade. The grading system is the most crucial element of education for students. Consequently, the grading system prevents the students from distraction while they study. Students tend to ask more and more questions from teachers to pass the exams or test with good grades (Spring et al.).

The only focus for students in the academic journey has become the grading. Eventually, the grading system keeps the students focused on objectives to gain good grades in tests and exams. The habit of focusing and learning will subsequently improve the skills of students to read, write, understand a particular concept. Development and growth of skills ultimately lead the students to achieve improved grades in studies. Numerous schools and colleges across the world exploit the mindset of students in this regard. The schools, colleges, and universities attempt to grow the skills of students just for the sake of grades. On the other hand, students support teachers and educational staff well in this domain.

Currently, not only schools, colleges, and universities focus on the grading system, but numerous business organisations hire specific candidates who desire for a job based on grades. Various organisations across the world tend to judge and evaluate the candidates based on achieved grades during the educational journey (Spring et al.). Business organisations across the globe have limitations of grades while hiring staff for organisational operations. Specific business organisations deny providing an opportunity to the candidates who secured GPA of 2.5 or less. On the other hand, these business organisations abruptly offer more opportunities to candidates who scored 3.5 or more GPA in universities.

Students are also well aware of that scenario; consequently; they try to maintain a respectable GPA to gain a reasonable opportunity professionally. Students know that their grades at academic institutions would have an impact on their future. Accordingly, students try to be more focused on studies to score good grades. Whether students understand a particular concept or not, they try to memorise the concept, and thus they decide to attempt the questions asked by their teachers or assessors. Consequently, the learning process of students gets improved over time. Students try to motivate themselves to secure better grades in their academic journey to perform well professionally. Parents also play a vital part here. The parents tend to memorise the students about the outcomes of the student's efforts. In most parts of the world, students are aimed to learn concepts at schools, colleges, and universities just for the sake of a good job or a profession (Vardi). The factor of getting educated for a respectable position in society also has a great influence on the adaptation of the grading system. The selection of job candidates based on the grading system also empowers the traditional grading system in academic institutes.

Grading system in academics also produces competition between peers that may ultimately help the students to put more and more efforts in studies to beat the competitors. Students try to maintain better grades than other peers to be prominent in the course of studies. The competition developed by grading system in academic institutes may also polish the skills of students to compete well professionally. Students develop inspirations from their peers as well who perform well in tests and exams, and accordingly, they are highly-rated in classrooms. Grading system helps to improve the performances of students by fostering motivation in them.

Grading system helps to improve the performances, but it occasionally fails to measure the accomplishments of students. Grading system does not refer to instructions and teaching. Grading is a separate entity for teaching. Teachers do not need a grading system to teach well to students. Similarly, students also do not require a grading system to learn well. Teachers usually need to check the progress of students in their learning (Patel et al.). Checking and grading are two different domains of education. While checking, a teacher needs to correct the students. On the other hand, while evaluating students, teachers may have to play the role of a judge. Consequently, it becomes difficult for teachers to play both roles while teaching.

For a student's perspective, the grading system tends to be a reason for the decreased efficiency of students. The grading system can demotivate students in multiple manners. An educational institute must contain students from different backgrounds and learning style. A student who is good at auditory learning may learn the concept abruptly by listening to teachers, but if that particular student is not good at writing or he is terrible at testing, he may fail the exam or may secure poor grades in a specific subject. The element of wrong judgement by grading system may eliminate the urge for learning in the students who are adverse at tests or exams. Consequently, the grading system proves to be a threat for the students who understand the concept rather than memorising the written lines and theories (Staniškis and Katiliute).

The grading system can cause adverse behaviour in students. Getting A grade develops the feelings of happiness, but on the other hand, getting grade D or F can also cause stress in students. There is a deep link between the psychology of students and education. The grading system can negatively impact the psychology of students. With poor psychological conditions, a student would not be able to perform in tests or exams.

Additionally, students are sometimes confused about their future, and they choose the subjects that do not attract them just for the sake of easy grades in those particular subjects. Students tend to select the subject based on ease and convenience instead of their potential and interest. In that case, the grading system of education may be unable to foster skills that are essential for the students as those skills will be against the personality of students. Unsatisfactory grading may have long-term adverse effects for students.

Grading system measures the performance of students in numbers that may be inadequate to measure the performance of students who are good at learning than at writing. On the other hand, the conventional grading system does not count the qualitative analysis of students (Rooksby and Dimitrov). For instance, the students who are good at different domains of education are neglected in the grading system. Only those students can benefit from grading system who work like machines. The only aim for students has become to memorise and write about a particular concept. The understanding level of the concept does not count in the grading system. Consequently, the aim and focus of students have converged to get good grades and to get a better job opportunity rather than to understand a specific concept.

The traditional grading system is a tool to measure the performances of students in educational institutions. Numerous schools, colleges, and universities adopt the technique of grading to measure the accomplishments of students (Saxton et al.). The grading system is secure and convenient for educational organisations for measuring the performances of students. Measuring the student's performance is a complex task; grading makes the complex task easy for educational organisations. The grading system is substantial from a student's perspective as the grading system provides the grounds to students for improving their skills and performances relevant to education. Students tend to learn more for the sake of good grades as good grades are deeply associated with the future of students.

On the other hand, the grading system is also considered adverse in various circumstances. Traditional grading does not measure the performances of those students who are good in understanding than writing in tests and exams (Carcary). Additionally, traditional and conventional grading system may have adverse effects on mental health of students that eventually will decrease the capacity of students in education. Traditional and conventional grading system has converged the focus of students from learning to just memorising.

References of Grading System in Academic Institutions

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