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¶

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 a design page cites it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims¶

q1 i? A rank ordering of students does not serve the instructor's task, which is identifying who has and has not achieved the objectives and teaching the latter. → 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

Philosophical argument paraphrasing Dewey: "if any student has not learned, the teacher has not taught him," so ranking students is useless; the instructor instead needs to know who achieved the objectives and teach those who did not. No empirical data support this.

"To para-phrase Dewey, we should laugh at a salesman who said he sold many items when no one bought any.The analogy to learning is perfect:if any student has not learned, the teacher has not taught him."

Discussion¶

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
• Abandoning assessment entirely is not an acceptable alternative to competitive grading, per the author's argument — a broader claim this one bears on
• Competitive (norm-referenced) grading pits students against one another and discourages cooperation, according to the author's argument — related