ABSTRACT
When teachers identify their least favorite aspect of the job, most of them answer, “Grading.” This should be no surprise: Probably no aspect of teaching has a greater impact on student learning than the grading system. Grades have enormous consequences. They affect students’ motivation to learn, their perceptions about the teacher's integrity, and their relationships with one another. Lowman (1984) called grades “an unpleasant and unavoidable reality” for both teachers and students (p. 185). Pollio and Humphreys (1990) stated:
Grades, grading, and the uses made of them strongly affect the academic climate within which teaching and learning take place. With the exception of very few institutions, grades and the grading game are the basic facts of academic life for professors and students, and they influence in many and varied ways important interactions between teachers and learners. (p. 109)
