<aside> 💡 Most content in this guide is centered around grading written assignments.

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As part of your teaching activities, you might be asked to grade student work - for example a written assignment. While there is no one best way to go about grading, you may want to consider the following aspects:

What you grade

• Type of assignment: written assignment (essay), oral exam/presentation, report, …
• Share of overall grade: How much of the total grade (in percent) does the part you are grading contribute?
• Points vs. Scale: Is the supposed outcome of your grading a certain number of points (e.g.: from 0 to 20), or a number along the Swedish grading scale (3, 4, 5, Fail), or just a Pass or Fail?

How you grade

Grading can be tricky, especially when you have to distribute points and not just grades (see above). For instance, how can you differentiate between a submission that deserves 14 or 15 points? Consider here that grading takes time - a lot of time if you go into it unprepared (and still want to do it properly, which you should). Some courses and assignments might have 50, 100 or even more submissions. Here, you might have not more than 10-15 minutes to grade each submission on average.

Below you find a possible approach for helping you become more efficient at grading while doing justice to the task - namely, to create and use a grading scale. (The word “fair” is avoided here as true “fairness” in grading is likely an illusion, at least for most assignments.) This approach requires you to invest some time upfront but promises to repay you with a more smooth grading process.

1. Clarify what you grade (esp. points vs. scale). This will determine the effort level (rigor) you have to put into the next steps. For instance, less rigor may be required for pass-or-fail grading compared to grading based on distributed points (e.g. 0-20 points).
2. Create a grading scale (e.g. in Excel)

   1. If distributing points: define how many points will be (roughly) equivalent to which grade (3, 4, 5, Fail). This will depend on the course. If in doubt, discuss this with the examiner. A common scale for 0-20 points could be:

      • 0-9 points (<50%): Fail
      • 10-13 points (50-65%): 3
      • 14-17 points (65-85%): 4
      • 18-20 points (85-100%): 5

      Keep in mind that this may only be an orientation, especially in case points for the assignment you grade get added up with those from other assignments. Still, having a rough translation from points into grades can help you make your decisions.

   2. Define macro-level grading criteria

      • For this, take a look at the course syllabus as well as the assignment.
      • What will differentiate a 3 from a 4, or a 4 from a 5? What will be the minimum requirements for getting a 3?
        • For more-fine grained scales (e.g. 0-20 points), it can be helpful to distinguish also on a more fine-grained level - e.g. between a strong 4 (14-15 points) and weak 4 (16-17 points).
      • If you also create the assignment that you grade, you should consider what and how you want to grade already at that stage!

   3. Define micro-level grading criteria

      • What will students get points for?
      • What are arguments, keywords, theories, references you want to read?
      • You may also want to consider deducting points, e.g. for bad use of language or lack of academic references used (if required).
3. Grade assignments
   • Read and grade assignments, one-by-one.
   • Take notes while reading to justify your grading. Your notes may correspond with items on your grading scale (e.g. a certain argument, reference being used).
   • Consider grading assignments in random order to avoid bias.
4. Review grades to reduce bias
   • Look at the distribution of grades/points: What is the average? What is the median? What are the highest/lowest values? You don’t have to go into the statistics too deeply. Instead, aim to get a rough impression of the distribution. E.g., are there surprisingly many/few high performers? Is the average surprisingly high/low? Compare this to your subjective impression: Have students really been that good/bad? Or have you been too harsh/lenient in your grading?
     • Having created a grading scale, you may be able to tweak how many points you distribute (and for what) without compromising the integrity of the grading process, as long as you apply the same criteria to all students.
   • Identify outliers and re-read them. For instance, is there a submission that scores very high on a certain aspect (or sub-question) but very low on another one?
   • Pick out a few submissions and compare them against each other. Are the points/grades awarded “justifiable”? For instance, compare a Fail with the lowest 3, or two submissions receiving the same points/grades, or the three highest-scoring submissions.
5. Finalize your grades and send to examiner
   • You may want/have to discuss your grades with the examiner and/or other graders. If applicable, this process will be initiated by the examiner. Here, using a grading scale will again come in handy.

An example of a grading scale for an exam question in the course TEK745 can be found here:

Grading scale_Example from TEK745.xlsx

Grading discussions

Grading inevitably involves judging people’s performance, and judging people’s performance can come with disappointing expectations. Accordingly, you should be prepared for having to discuss your grading with students which think they should have scored higher on the assignment. For many forms of assignments, such discussions take place at an exam viewing. Here again, using a grading scale will help you massively.

Grading discussions can be uncomfortable situations, both for you as the grader and for the student. The following tips might help you handle such situations in a better way: