ABSTRACT
The purpose of student evaluation is decision-making. The present chapter focuses on one particular type of decision, the assignment of grades. When a teacher assigns a grade to a student, a value is being attached to academic performance. When we label a score of 63 on a test an A, and a score of 59 a B, we have differentiated between two levels of student performance and assigned a value to them. Test scores and class ranking also tell us how a student is performing. Each of these implies a value because it is better to have a high than a low score, just as it is better to be ranked at the top of a group than at the bottom. In the case of scores and rankings, value is relative and entirely dependent on the group with whom one is being compared. You could be the best student in a class, but this would be a hollow honor if the class consisted of poor students. Similarly, you could be ranked at the bottom among professional tennis players and still be a wonderfully skilled player. While scores and ranks are relative, a grade is intended to have meaning beyond the comparison group. In practice, grades are seldom meaningful in isolation. To make a grade meaningful you need to know something about the class in which the grade was bestowed, the difficulty of the tests upon which it was based and the distribution of grades.
