Revisiting assessment grading tools

Assessment grading tools in universities are used to make judgments about student performance on set assessment tasks. Traditionally, these grading tools take the form of matrix style criteria sheets. Matrix style criteria sheets have been in popular use for over a decade in Queensland universities. This paper reports on a project to engage academic peers in raising the quality of teacher education practices through assessment-related initiatives centred on the design of grading tools at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Central to the design is the ‘trialling’ of a Continua model of a Guide to Making Judgments, which has, as its basis, what Matters (2004) refers to as the Grading Master. The project involved 25 academic peers attending focussed workshops, participating in discussions, rewriting criteria sheets using a new design model and reflecting upon the experiences. A Likert scale survey was used to determine participant ‘satisfaction’ across a number of measures related to the design of the new grading tool and its effectiveness. Feedback indicated that the design of the ‘new’ tool had significant advantages over the traditional matrix style criteria sheet in regard to explicitly identifying different standards; simplifying the grading process and streamlining moderation procedures