Competitive (norm-referenced) grading pits students against one another and discourages cooperation, according to the author's argument¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · theoretical r2 · q1
Currency · newest study 1971 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on an ERIC document (a report, conference paper or thesis). It is kept because 3 design pages cite it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims¶

q1 i? Norm-referenced grading sets students in competition, making cooperation risky and encouraging cheating, per the author's argued position. → Gentile 1971

Evidence¶

Gentile 1971¶

Gentile, J. Ronald. (1971). Toward Excellence in Teaching: Grading Practices. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED061264

q1 · i? · theoretical · r2

Theoretical argument in this essay, not an empirical test: the author contends competitive testing pits students against one another, "setting up a situation in which cooperation among students is risky." No data are offered for this claim.

"Competitive testing is, first of all, sadistic because it pits one student against another, setting up a situation in which cooperation among students is risky."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Collaboration — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Criterion-referenced tests indicate whether a particular skill or objective has been achieved rather than comparing performance to other test takers — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• Cooperative Learning Improves Achievement — related
• Abandoning assessment entirely is not an acceptable alternative to competitive grading, per the author's argument — related
• Collaborative Learning Improves Outcomes — related
• Meta-analyses by Johnson and Johnson find cooperative learning promotes higher achievement than competition or individual work across ages, subjects, and tasks — related
• Passing individual microphones discouraged some students from asking questions during telelectures — related
• Grade cutoffs are arbitrary because adjacent scores receiving different grades are not significantly different, per the author's statistical argument — related
• Small-group learning improves undergraduate STEM achievement — related
• Rank-ordering students is irrelevant to teaching because teaching is not claimed to have occurred unless each student learned, per the author's Dewey-inspired argument — related