Grade performance can be misleading when it is used as a determining factor for assessing whether or not course objectives have been met. Especially, when the use of partial credit is used and may mean that a student only partially grasped everything and fully mastered nothing. Implementing specifications grading into a course can help assess student learning not only in general chemistry courses but also in an upper level course like biochemistry. Five essential skills assessments (ESA) were administered where students were required to pass all of the ESAs with a score of four out of five and had up to five chances to pass each quiz administered. All other material not identified as essential was tested on in traditional general skills exams. The course objectives, grading outline, schedule of administering the ESAs, examples of the ESAs, and a comparison of the number of retakes will be discussed. A comparison of student overall grade distributions from previous years will be presented along with student responses to survey questions about the implementation of the ESAs. Proficiency of topics assessed from the ESAs on the ACS final exam as well as the scores from the POGIL biochemistry diagnostic assessment instrument will be compared.

Adapting specifications grading into an introductory biochemistry course to assess learning outcomes

2019 Spring National Meeting

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