Leia o texto para responder às questões de números 39 a 49.

As a scholar of education who studies grading practices, I’ve seen how important grades are to schools, students and their families.

Teachers, too, certainly know how important grades are. In fact, teachers spend over one-third of their professional work time assessing and evaluating student learning. But most university teacher-education programs focus on curriculum and instruction, with less attention attached to assessment. These programs do not talk about how to actually grade student work.

In keeping with a long-held tradition in education, teachers also have, and like, the autonomy to set their own practices. That has resulted in inconsistency, inequity and even unreliability in teachers’ grading practices.

For example, teachers decide if grades will be based on tests, quizzes, homework, participation, behavior, effort, extra credit or other evidence. When surveying over 15,000 teachers, administrators, support educators, parents and students, I found teachers use a rather comprehensive range of evidence in grades. While they primarily use tests, quizzes, projects, and homework to assign grades, teachers at all grade levels also include nonacademic evidence, like behavior and effort, in their grading equations.

Once teachers decide what to include in their grades, they decide how much weight to assign to each grade category. One teacher may weigh homework as 20% of the final course grade, while another teacher in the same grade level may choose a different weight or not grade homework at all.

In my study, I have talked to teachers who curve grades, that is, these teachers adjust grades by adding points to all students’ scores to bring the highest score up to 100%. Other teachers in the same school told me they do not grade on a curve - they add extra credit points to students’ final course grades if they attend a school event, such as a play. Some teachers told me they also add grade points if a student was never tardy to class or never missed an assignment deadline.

The effort to keep up with multiple teachers’ different grading expectations causes students chronic stress and anxiety, especially for those students with poor organizational, time-management and self-regulation skills. This is also the case for students competing for high grade-point averages and class rank. Still, students rarely question teachers’ grading or the grading differences between teachers; rather, they have accepted these differences because “this is how it’s always been”.

(Laura Link theconversation.com, 16.03.2023. Adaptado)