Beyond grades: rethinking how we measure student success
The practice of grading began in 18th-century Europe, where schools introduced rank-based systems to foster competition among students for prizes and prestige. As Western education became more formalised in the 19th and 20th centuries, grades evolved into standardised symbols of achievement, designed to simplify the complex process of evaluating learning. Since then, grades have become deeply rooted in classrooms around the world, used to measure understanding, motivate students, sort them into academic pathways and provide feedback. But how accurately do grades reflect what a student actually knows?
At Florida International University, Dr Karla D. Rivera Caceres is investigating alternative grading methods that encourage students to master learning outcomes rather than aim for the highest number of marks. Through her ungraded teaching structures, she is exploring how moving away from traditional grades can improve student motivation and lead to deeper, more meaningful learning experiences.
Why traditional grading falls short
In most summative assessments today, students earn their final grade through a numerical system with clearly defined grade boundaries. While this model offers a straightforward way to evaluate performance, it has significant drawbacks. “Many studies show that traditional grading encourages students to focus on their performance more than their learning, prevents them from paying attention to feedback, increases their anxiety and reduces their desire to take risks,” explains Karla. “Instead, they prefer to play it safe and avoid losing points, sometimes even copying homework instead of trying it themselves and risking mistakes that would lower their grade.”
If we applied grading to other learning activities outside of school, these experiences would look very different. “For example, learning to do tricks on a skateboard involves a lot of trial and error,” says Karla. “If each trial was ‘graded’ and skaters lost points for each mistake, they would be stressed and focus on what they can do to lose the least number of points. They would probably play it safe and not push themselves to learn the coolest tricks.”
Alternative grading
Alternative grading moves away from the traditional system of assigning points and weighted percentages to measure student performance. Instead, it focuses on whether students meet clearly defined learning goals. One common approach is ‘ungrading’, which removes points entirely and prioritises clear communication about what students need to learn, along with providing targeted resources to help them succeed. Rather than relying on numerical scores, instructors assess if students have mastered the expected skills or content and clearly communicated this progress. If students have not yet met the learning objectives, they receive detailed, constructive feedback explaining how to improve. Crucially, alternative grading encourages multiple attempts, allowing students to revise and demonstrate mastery over time, promoting a growth mindset.
Ungrading is not the only type of alternative grading. Some teachers use ‘specification-based grading’ approaches that may still use points but adhere to the same principles of clear learning targets, feedback and opportunities for improvement. “As different subject areas measure learning in different ways, there is a wide diversity in approaches to alternative grading,” explains Karla. “Proficiency in art will be measured differently than proficiency in science, and evaluating a small group is very different from evaluating a large cohort.”
Shifting student motivation
Karla believes that alternative grading strategies can shift student motivation from ‘performance goal orientation’, where the goal is to appear competent to others, to ‘mastery goal orientation’, where the focus is on understanding and improving. Traditional grading systems often push students toward performance goals – prompting them to demonstrate what they know or hide what they do not. “Research shows that in graded environments, students focus on getting the highest number of points to show their peers, parents or university admissions teams that they did well in the course, and they focus on preventing the loss of points by any means to avoid showing that they performed poorly,” explains Karla. “The idea with ungrading is that if you remove the points, you remove the source that causes students to focus on performance, to the detriment of their learning.”
The benefits
The main goal of alternative grading is to eliminate the negative effects associated with traditional grades. It aims to reduce anxiety, encourage students to focus on learning rather than just performance, promote engagement with feedback and support risk-taking in learning.
While research measuring the effectiveness of these methods is still limited and sometimes inconclusive, many educators report qualitative improvements in their courses. Despite mixed data, the positive impacts on student motivation and learning experiences are clear enough to inspire ongoing study – including Karla’s National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research investigating these benefits in depth.
Putting ungrading into practice
Reference
https://doi.org/10.33424/FUTURUM625
“Most of my courses include over 100 students, so I have designed a unique way to implement an ungraded structure,” says Karla. In her genetics course, the structure is centred around learning outcomes – clear statements of what students need to learn. For example, one learning outcome reads: “Identify the difference between a gene and an allele.” Students are provided with resources, such as recorded lectures and quizzes, and take part in group discussions to support their learning. These activities carry no points to ensure that learning is not driven by rewards, but by understanding.
Students demonstrate mastery of learning outcomes in multiple ways. They can explain their understanding in live discussions, answer questions in online quizzes or submit videos where they explain concepts they initially misunderstood. If their explanation is incomplete or incorrect, they are encouraged to try again. A final evaluation at the end of the course gives students one more opportunity to show their progress.
This structure creates space for trial, error and feedback. “None of the ‘mistakes’ that students make throughout the assessments count against their final standing in the course,” explains Karla. “Mastering a learning outcome on the final attempt counts just as much as if it had been mastered on the first try.” This removes the pressure of one-shot assessments and supports students in developing a deeper, more confident understanding.
The impact
To better understand the impact of her ungraded teaching structures, Karla is conducting a research project in two phases.
In the first phase, she is using pre- and post-course surveys to measure four key variables: 1) how valuable students find the course, 2) whether they feel that the course is focused on learning or performance, 3) how concerned they are about doing well or badly, and 4) how focused they are on learning. These surveys are conducted in both traditionally-graded and ungraded courses. “I am also collecting information about where students are in their academic journey, as well as any factors that might classify them as non-traditional students,” says Karla. “I will then examine whether these factors influence their focus and perceptions differently compared to traditional students.”
In Phase 2, Karla will assess actual learning outcomes by using subject-specific questions to measure students’ content knowledge at the beginning and end of the course. This will allow her to compare learning gains between students in graded and ungraded environments.
By examining both students’ attitudes and their learning outcomes, Karla’s research offers valuable insights into how grading practices shape educational experiences. While traditional grading remains the norm in most classrooms, her work highlights the potential of alternative approaches to reduce anxiety, promote deeper engagement and prioritise meaningful learning. As educators continue to question long-standing practices, Karla’s findings could play a key role in rethinking how we define success in education and how we support students in achieving it.
Dr Karla D. Rivera Caceres
Associate Teaching Professor, College of Arts, Sciences and Education, Florida International University, USA
Fields of research: Alternative grading, STEM education
Research project: Using alternative grading methods that prioritise the mastery of learning outcomes over the attainment of points
Funders: US National Science Foundation (NSF)
Advice for teachers
Implementing alternative grading in any subject
While Karla’s work focuses on biology, alternative grading can be applied across disciplines. “The most important step in transitioning a course to an ungraded structure is to have a clear set of learning outcomes that are measurable,” explains Karla. “For example, if one learning outcome of the course is ‘Write a good paragraph’ or ‘Understand Mendelian genetics,’ it is very hard to see whether the student has mastered that learning outcome, because ‘good’ and ‘understand’ are somewhat subjective.” Instead, try breaking these outcomes down into specific, observable skills. For example, ‘write a good paragraph’ could become ‘construct a paragraph with a clear thesis statement and supporting arguments’.
Once these specific outcomes are defined, you can design appropriate resources (e.g., lectures, demonstrations and activities) to help students work towards mastery, and develop assessments (e.g., essays, projects or skill demonstrations) that allow students to show what they have learnt.
Offering students multiple opportunities to demonstrate learning is a key principle of ungrading, but it can be time-consuming. To manage this, critically evaluate your course content and consider removing non-essential material. This frees up time to support second-chance learning opportunities for high-priority outcomes.
The challenges
One of the biggest challenges in implementing alternative grading is that traditional grading – especially points-based systems – is incredibly convenient. In large classes, learning management systems automatically calculate scores, making it quick and easy to assign final grades. Points are also familiar to students, and many have come to associate them with accountability and motivation. Removing points, then, presents a twofold challenge: you must find new ways to assess student performance, and students must adapt to a new system where their learning is not reduced to a number.
“Small classes are usually easier to transform to ungrading because you can check if a student has met the course requirements,” says Karla. “Larger classes usually rely on multiple choice quizzes, so designing questions that really address the desired learning outcomes is key.”
Another significant challenge is helping students understand that just because a resource or activity does not carry points, it is still valuable. This shift in mindset can be difficult for students who are used to equating effort with rewards. “Convincing students that ‘no points’ doesn’t mean ‘no value’ depends a lot on how strongly you believe in it and how effectively you can communicate it to your students,” says Karla. “I’ve had great success convincing most students that focusing on learning, regardless of the points, is better for them.”
Finally, implementing the second-chance element can present its own difficulties. It requires time, feedback and infrastructure. “I wouldn’t be able to do it in my large courses without intentionally focusing on the content I really want students to learn and ditching anything else!” says Karla. “And I definitely couldn’t do it without the support of learning assistants who help provide feedback in smaller groups.”
Rethinking what’s possible
Many educators express frustration with traditional grading, yet often see it as an inevitable part of teaching. But grades are not immutable. For those considering a shift, the first step is to recognise that meaningful alternatives are not only possible, but that they’re already being used successfully in many classrooms. Transitioning to an ungraded or alternative grading system does take effort, but so does conventional grading; the difference is that one is simply more familiar.
You do not need to start from scratch. There are existing resources, such as clearly defined learning outcomes, sample assessments and community-shared strategies, that can ease the transition. And those who have already made the shift are often enthusiastic about offering support. “I would say that anyone that has a clear understanding of what they want their students to learn, and a clear idea of how to transmit that knowledge, can overcome the challenges of transforming their courses,” says Karla. Taking the first step, however small, can open the door to a more meaningful, student-centred approach to learning.
From ornithology to the classroom
Meet Karla
I have always been fascinated by behaviour in both humans and animals. I was captivated by the similarities between the development of song in songbirds and speech in humans, so I studied a PhD and Postdoc in ornithology.
Even before starting my PhD, I was invested in the problem of how to teach science effectively. I did some teaching during my PhD and felt the need to understand why my students weren’t engaging with the content I was trying to teach and only stressing about getting an A.
As a postdoc (still working on bird behaviour), I taught an animal endocrinology course to 60 students and decided to remove all tests and try to convince students to learn the content because it was interesting and useful, not because they would be graded on it. I devised some projects and thought students would enjoy them. Instead, they complained about lectures being worthless because there were no tests.
After that, I decided to leave my ornithology career and focus on developing effective science courses, both at college and K-12 levels. I was not planning on doing research anymore, but when I learnt about the benefits of ungrading, and saw few studies quantifying them, I decided to try to generate data that could convince more teachers to embrace the practice.
I think of my time as an ornithologist as a fun detour from my true calling: teaching. However, being able to roam around the tropical forests in Costa Rica was an experience that I will never forget!
Karla’s top tip
Encourage your students to participate in activities outside of school, because sometimes those are the most meaningful.
Do you have a question for Karla?
Write it in the comments box below and Karla will get back to you. (Remember, researchers are very busy people, so you may have to wait a few days.)
Learn more about how you can improve attention and focus in your classroom:
futurumcareers.com/improving-attention-and-focus-in-classroom-environments
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