Perceptions and attitudes about school grading practices among intellectually gifted, learning-disabled, and normal elementary school pupils

Fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students, repre-senting three classifications—intellectually gifted, learning disabled, and normal-achieving—were compared for their concep-tualizations, attributions, and attitudes about school grading practices. Significant differences were found among the three groups, particularly in ability to define grading systems and tenden-cies to perceive the causes for getting good grades as internal and controllable. Linear trends were found on these variables, with mean scores show-ing an increase from the learning-disabled, to the normal-achieving, to the gifted group. Results are discussed in terms of psychological theory and issues for educational practice. Formal evaluation, represented by marking or grading students, is among the most salient experiences of school life. It has been characterized as &dquo;the basic currency of our educational system&dquo; (Deutsch, 1979) and as a major problem area in school (Dellow, Ross, & James, 1980; Mitchell, 1983). Despite the importance of grades, comparatively little research has been done on students ’ attitudes and understandings of grading. Rather, researchers have focused on teachers ’ at-titudes and viewpoints on grading (Rogers, 1982; Salvia, Algozzine, & Sheare, 1977) and students ’ perceptions of teachers ’ attitudes toward grades (Raviv