Ungrading¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 2 claims (2 for) · 5 studies (3 quant-synthesis, 1 review, 1 theoretical), q1–q4 · 3 of 5 report an effect size

Description¶

Ungrading is the practice of removing letter grades or point scores from student work — or delaying them until the end of a course — and replacing them with substantive feedback, self-evaluation, and revision. Instructors still assess; what changes is that evaluative judgment is communicated as descriptive commentary rather than a summative symbol, and students are often given a central role in determining their final grade through self-assessment and conferencing.

Design Implications¶

Ungrading aligns with the evidence that grades function as controlling, ego-involving rewards that can undermine intrinsic motivation and shift attention from learning to performance Autonomy supports intrinsic motivation. [+M]. Butler's classic experiments found that task-focused comments produced more interest and better subsequent performance than grades alone, and that grades attenuated the benefit of comments when both were given [~S]. The approach treats evaluation as Assessment for Learning: feedback is only formative if students act on it, and a grade attached to feedback tends to stop that action.

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Rich, timely, task- and process-level feedback replacing the score as the primary evaluative signal Feedback is most effective at task and process levels. [+S]
• Structured opportunities for revision so feedback has a consequence
• A transparent end-of-term mechanism (self-assessment memo, learning portfolio, or grade conference) so students are not left in evaluative limbo
• Institutional awareness: most implementations still require a final grade, so the instructor must translate qualitative evidence into one

Constraints¶

• Grades attached to feedback can erase the feedback's motivational benefit — students attend to the symbol and ignore the comments [~S]
• Without structured self-assessment support, students with weak metacognitive skills may misjudge their own performance, and ungrading can mask rather than close achievement gaps [~M]
• Students socialized into grade-seeking may experience the removal of grades as anxiety-producing or as "not counting," reducing early effort unless the stakes of the final grade are made explicit and trust is built through check-ins
• Labor-intensive: feedback quality must be high enough to substitute for the information a grade compresses, which strains instructor workload in large-enrollment courses [-M]

Implementation Variability¶

• Complete ungrading: no marks on any work; final grade from a negotiated portfolio
• Contract or specification grading: work is complete/incomplete against clear specifications; grades reflect completed bundles, not quality judgments (e.g., Nilson's specifications grading)
• Delay and single-decision grading: feedback-only during the term, one grade assigned at the end based on student self-assessment
• Portfolio and conference models: periodic assessment conversations replace written scores

Target Learners¶

• Most effective with learners who have some metacognitive capacity for self-evaluation; self-assessment accuracy improves with practice and rubric support [~M]
• Graduate seminars, writing-intensive courses, and studio/discipline-based courses where iterative revision is central
• Requires more scaffolding for first-year students unfamiliar with self-evaluation; pairing with Self-Regulated Learning instruction mitigates miscalibration

Target Learning Goals¶

• Intrinsic motivation and sustained engagement with disciplinary work Autonomy supports intrinsic motivation. [+M]
• Self-regulation: accurate self-monitoring, goal-setting, and revision
• Deep approach to learning rather than performance-oriented minimal compliance

Instructions¶

1. Replace scores on all work with task- and process-level written or oral feedback Feedback is most effective at task and process levels. [+S]
2. Build mandatory revision cycles so feedback is consequential rather than terminal
3. Teach self-assessment explicitly — model evaluative criteria and calibrate student judgments against exemplars early in the term
4. Hold periodic check-ins or grade conferences where students propose and justify their own progress rating
5. Determine the final grade collaboratively from a portfolio or learning narrative, using coaching conversations rather than unilateral judgment where possible

Related Strategies¶

• Specifications grading — a structured variant that preserves transparency while removing quality-based scoring
• Portfolio assessment — the evidentiary backbone of most ungrading implementations
• Mastery learning — shares the assumption that evaluation should signal current status and permit retry, not rank

Examples¶

• Susan Blum's edited volume Ungrading (2017, West Virginia University Press) — fifteen instructor case studies across disciplines and institution types, including STEM large-enrollment adaptations
• Jesse Stommel's "How to Ungrade" (2018, JesseStommel.com) — widely cited practical framing: "grades and comments are antithetical processes"
• Nilson's specifications grading — used in engineering and CS courses (e.g., reported implementations at Clemson and elsewhere): bundles of complete/incomplete assignments mapped to course grades
• Writing-across-the-curriculum programs (e.g., Michigan State's peer writing consultant model) — feedback-and-revision cycles with delayed grading

Key Sources¶

• Butler, R. (1988). Enhancing and undermining intrinsic motivation: The effects of task-involving and ego-involving evaluation on interest and performance. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 58(1), 1–14. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8279.1988.tb00874.x
• Butler, R., & Nisan, M. (1986). Effects of no feedback, task-related comments, and grades on intrinsic motivation and performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 78(3), 210–216. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.78.3.210
• Schinske, J., & Tanner, K. (2014). Teaching more by grading less (or differently). CBE—Life Sciences Education, 13(2), 159–174. doi:10.1187/cbe.cbe-14-03-0054
• Blum, S. D. (Ed.). (2017). Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead). West Virginia University Press.
• Kohn, A. (2011). The case against grades. Educational Leadership, 69(3), 28–34.