Instructors at all educational levels regularly engage in the important task of evaluating student written work during summative assessment. Nevertheless, few research studies exist that provide insights into how different instructors approach this task. In this study, we analyzed the correlation of assigned grades with variations in chemistry instructors’ approaches during the evaluation and grading of student responses to conceptual questions from general chemistry. While most instructors were consistent in their individual preference for certain approaches, our results revealed differences between instructors in various dimensions, such as focus of attention (e.g., knowledge vs. reasoning), the construction of a rubric to evaluate student work, and the extent to which instructors engaged in building inferences about student understanding. Differences in approaches along some dimensions correlated with assigned grades, but relevant dimensions differed for novice and experienced instructors (e.g., adopting an inferential versus a literal stance had a significant correlation with the grades assigned by experienced instructors but not by novice ones). Our findings highlight the potential strategies to support professional development of college instructors such as asking instructors to critically reflect on how the decisions they make along multiple dimensions during the grading process can affect the outcome.

Variation in chemistry instructors’ evaluations of student written responses and its impact on grading

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.