Beyond Achievement

Access, Identity, and Power in Alternative Grading

Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

Today we bring you a guest post by Kelsey Grinde and Leslie Myint (both at Macalester College) and Allison Theobold (at Cal Poly). This post stems from ideas shared in a 2023 Joint Statistical Meetings session, “Power in the Classroom: From Helping Students Play the Game to Helping Students Change the Game”, where all three co-authors presented.

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Introduction: Four Dimensions of Equity

Fifteen years after its publication, Framing Equity: Helping Students “Play the Game” and “Change the Game” (Gutiérrez, 2009) continues to stand as a beacon for evaluating equitable teaching. Conversations about equity often regress into “gap gazing”—comparing the achievement outcomes for students with different identities or backgrounds (Gutiérrez, 2008). Gutiérrez challenges educators to consider achievement as just one part of a larger system of equity made up of four dimensions: 

• Access refers to the resources (content, human, environmental, etc.) available to students. This dimension underpins instructors’ choices about the learning experiences students have and how they seek aid. 

• Achievement refers to visible student outcomes. This may include, for example, their participation in a given class, the courses they take, and their major. 

• Identity refers to the lived experiences of all involved in teaching and learning. Reflecting on identity helps us understand why we design learning experiences the way we do (what are our values as instructors?) and how these experiences impact students (whose values are privileged by our curriculum/pedagogy?). 

• Power refers to the agency of all involved in the teaching and learning process. Are individuals who wish to take action able to do so? For students, examples include being able to speak in the classroom, applying their knowledge to critique society, and shaping the trajectory of their learning. 

Gutiérrez groups these four dimensions into two axes. The Dominant Axis, formed by Access and Achievement, focuses on “preparing students to participate economically in society and privileging the status quo.” This axis is concerned with helping students, and measuring how well they can, “play the game” — i.e., navigate the rules, norms, and structures of traditional, dominant education. Building critical citizens who can draw on their “cultural and linguistic resources” to change the world around them is the focus of the Critical Axis (Identity & Power). While Gutiérrez developed this framework in the context of Mathematics Education, we believe it provides a lens into thinking about equity across disciplines. 

The four dimensions of equity as outlined by Gutiérrez, modified to indicate the dominant and critical axes. 

How does alternative grading fit into this system? The most obvious connection is to Achievement, with its focus on student outcomes. As Gutiérrez describes:

This dimension is measured by tangible results for students at all levels of mathematics, including such things as participation in a given class, course taking patterns, standardized test scores, and participation in the math pipeline (e.g., majoring in mathematics in college, having a math-based career).

Grades could easily be added to this list. In the college classroom, grades are the primary mechanism by which we quantify and communicate our students’ “achievement.” Grades are a “tangible result” in and of themselves, and they affect others: the future courses students might take, the major(s) they might pursue, graduation timelines, job prospects, eligibility for academic awards and scholarships, and more. In other words: grades have many downstream consequences, positive and negative, personal, economic, and otherwise.

But, as Gutiérrez states, Achievement is one part of a larger, interconnected system. While much of the discourse on alternative grading has focused on interrogating how we define and measure achievement, can we move beyond this focus on achievement to consider other dimensions of equity? Below, we discuss three salient questions that arise when reflecting on and designing grading practices and outline how Access, Identity, and Power inform choices in these areas.

Salient Questions for Alternative Grading

Are our grades accurately measuring and communicating student achievement?

Traditional grades have an accuracy problem: consider the many discussions on this blog and elsewhere (e.g., here, here, and here) about calculating averages, partial credit, and grades reflecting nonacademic factors. Grades also have a communication problem: they do not, for example, provide helpful feedback to students (Butler & Nisan, 1986). 

The Access dimension can help us understand how marks might be inaccurate. The resources that are available to students—and that they feel comfortable accessing—will affect their achievement in class. We need to confront tacit expectations we have of students in using these resources (the hidden curriculum). We reveal these expectations when we ask ourselves:

• What does it mean to “complete” a reading?

• How does a student “prepare” for class and “participate” in class?

• How does a student parse assignment descriptions and study for exams?

• How can a student seek help or communicate with us?

If the answers to these questions are not explicit in our course materials, or if they're baked into our grading systems (e.g., when we grade factors like participation or attendance), students with privileged Identities—who have greater access to, and experience with, the hidden curriculum—will be more likely to succeed.

To counteract this, we can work to disentangle these expectations from grades, removing any grade components—like participation—that reflect behavior rather than learning. It can also be helpful to change our picture of “students” when we review our course materials from their standpoint. When we think about “students” in the general sense, it is easy to lose sight of the many relevant identities that will affect individual students' experiences in our courses (e.g., differing physical and intellectual abilities, learning preferences, socioeconomic backgrounds, first-generation college students). Instead, we can come up with a list of identities that are most relevant for our classrooms and ensure that our course materials and policies promote access for each student. For example, we might see that our course materials impose a significant reading burden for students with dyslexia. To address this, we could provide nearly equivalent materials in alternate form for at least a few readings.

Can our grading systems go beyond measuring achievement and help our students achieve?

At the heart of many alternative grading practices is the goal of helping students learn to “play the game” and achieve in our courses. Consider the Clearly Defined Standards pillar of alternative grading. To achieve in our courses, students first need to know how "achievement" looks—writing clear standards, specifications, rubrics, etc. unveils what might otherwise be hidden in traditional grading systems. Giving helpful feedback, with re-attempts so students can iterate on that feedback (more pillars!), then helps students work toward that achievement. 

Core to this question of helping students achieve in our courses, and beyond, is student empowerment and motivation. For students to feel empowered, they need to experience success. Giving students success experiences within our courses allows them to develop stronger disciplinary identities—possessing a sense of membership in a discipline—which can lead to persistence within that discipline (Martin, 2000; Nasir, 2002; Oppland-Cordell & Martin, 2015). The reattempts without penalty pillar is critical here, as normalizing mistakes is key for maintaining student motivation (Feldman, 2018). 

Beyond success in a given course, can an alternative grading system empower students to “change the game” in dominant systems they will face in the future? Core to this question is Access and Identity: specifically, access to, and deep understanding of, one’s self (values, motivations, etc.). For this reason, incorporating metacognition into our courses is paramount. Reflection prompts are useful for deeper understanding of both course content (see here, here, and here for prompt ideas) and our emotions and values (examples). Encouraging metacognition via our grading systems presents an opportunity for instructors to uplift a practice that empowers students in the long term. 

What do our grading systems say about how we define “achievement” and how it can be demonstrated? 

Gutiérrez’s framework challenges instructors to take the next step and consider “whose perspectives and practices are ‘socially valorized’” by our assessment system. Here “socially valorized” means answers to questions such as: What type of learning do we assign value to? How does our assessment system privilege students with certain identities? For example, high stakes, individualized assessments align with, and give power to, dominant white and masculine values of competition, individualism, and risk (Battey & Leyva, 2016; D’Iganzaio & Klein, 2020; Hottinger, 2016). Students whose values do not reflect these dominant values experience additional tensions and inequities in their courses. Can alternative grading change this? How can we, as instructors, relinquish our Power and offer our students “opportunities to develop further agency in the world”?

Grading reinforces student/teacher hierarchies, a system where students hold little, if any, power—an especially destructive culture for students with historically marginalized identities (Fong et al., 2019; Leyva, 2021; McGee, 2016). As instructors, we define the goals of achievement (e.g., learning objectives), how “achievement” looks (e.g., specifications), and the timing and mode (e.g., written, oral) of assessments. One of the guiding pillars of alternative grading—reattempts without penalty—relinquishes some of this power by softening the timing of when students demonstrate their achievement, not penalizing students for the speed at which they learn. 

Students can also have a voice in defining how achievement looks, what they hope to learn, and the mode of assessment. Do you have a rubric you use to grade projects? Can you find ways for students to contribute to this rubric? Offering students the opportunity to co-create definitions for how they will be graded can put power in students’ hands and present opportunities for you to learn about what your students have been taught to expect. What about asking students on the first day of class to collectively draft learning outcomes or even co-create a syllabus? Or providing students the ability to choose the avenue by which they want to demonstrate their learning? 

Stepping beyond a single assignment, ungrading (especially when it involves regular student reflections and self-determination of a final grade) provides an opportunity for students to define or self-assess progress against course expectations. Experimenting with ungrading in our courses, all three of us have appreciated how it can open the door to considering a variety of ways students can demonstrate their learning, promote students’ autonomy and ownership over their learning, and foster a deeper understanding of what grades communicate about student achievement. Leslie has taken this even one step further by giving students a say in the assessment system used for their course. 

While ungrading can put more power in students’ hands, it is not perfect. By allowing students to make arguments for their final grade, ungrading can be susceptible to the instructor’s, and the student’s, implicit biases, leading to similar performances earning different grades based on the student’s identity. All three of us have experienced students with identities historically marginalized in STEM underselling their accomplishments, while their white, male peers have no qualms with arguing for a better grade than their evidence suggests. Moreover, these collaborative grading conversations open the door for faculty to have their authority questioned—a practice especially concerning for faculty who don’t have dominant-culture identities (e.g., white, male, cisgender, heterosexual) or institutional authority (e.g., tenured professors). Further, the success of ungrading relies heavily on students valuing intrinsic motivators and their ability to reflect meaningfully. These caveats underscore the need to fully consider issues of Identity and Power—both as relates to students and instructors—in the context of ungrading, and alternative grading more broadly.

Conclusion

Although at first glance grading may seem to relate only to Achievement, it really does lie at the crossroads of the four dimensions of equity posed by Guitérrez. Access, Identity, and Power all factor into the design and implementation of alternative grading systems, particularly as we consider the three key questions posed in this post.

Considering the four dimensions of equity, and how they are inextricably linked, pushes us to move conversations about equity beyond focusing on achievement gaps. We also need to consider avenues by which questions of Access, Identity, and Power play a role in our courses. For example, considering the distribution of power in group work and selecting content related to students’ interests and real-life experiences were two ideas that arose at the 2023 Joint Statistical Meetings session (in which the three of us participated) entitled “Power in the Classroom: From Helping Students Play the Game to Helping Students Change the Game.” While grading is certainly an important consideration when it comes to equity in our classrooms, it is one of many. 

As Gutiérrez so powerfully states: 

It is not enough to learn how to play the game; students must also be able to change the game. As educators, we need to be clear on our stance—that we are advocates for our students to do both. Doing so requires situating ourselves in the tensions that exist in this work.

Interrogating our grading systems provides one opportunity to situate ourselves in Nepantla (Anzaldúa, 2012), at the crossroads of these tensions. Tensions on our time and relationships. Tensions on ourselves and our own standards, and recognizing that no one system will support every student. Amidst these tensions, we hope this post brings you to reflect on how your grading systems help students “play the game,” and how they empower students (and yourself) to start changing the game. If they're not already doing both: what is one small change you would like to make to move in that direction?

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Kelsey Grinde is an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Macalester College. At Macalester, she has experimented with alternative grading techniques (to varying degrees of success!) in each of her courses. You can reach Kelsey at kgrinde@macalester.edu. 

Leslie Myint is an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Macalester College. Conversations about alternative grading and its intersections with joyful, meaningful learning are one of her lightning lures (in addition to playgrounds and board games). You can reach Leslie at lmyint@macalester.edu.

Allison Theobold is an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Cal Poly, teaching statistics and data science courses across the undergraduate and graduate curriculum. Outside of work, you can find Allison running and biking on the trails in San Luis Obispo, watching women’s basketball, cooking, and enjoying a good cup of coffee. You can reach Allison at atheobol@calpoly.edu.