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- Title
Grading and the Ethos of Effort.
- Authors
Howley, Aimee; Kusimo, Patricia S.; Parrott, Laurel
- Abstract
Using quantitative and qualitative data from a project to improve middle-school girls' engagement with science, mathematics and technology, this study examined the ways in which grading practices worked to augment the messages about achievement and compliance conveyed in more and less troubled schools. In particular, the study revealed differences in the extent to which different kinds of schools embedded achievement and non-achievement factors in the grades awarded to middle school girls. The study linked these differences to school-level differences in teachers' overall orientation toward grading. Grading in the more troubled schools - those with a more custodial orientation toward control - appeared to reflect teachers' tendency to subscribe to an 'ethos of effort'. Acting on the basis of this 'ethos', teachers in the troubled schools tended to confound achievement and non-achievement factors in the determination of report-card grades. In the less troubled school, by contrast, teachers did not rely as heavily on non-achievement factors when they determined students' grades. Given limitations associated with sampling, however, findings from the study were viewed cautiously. Nevertheless, the research appeared to support the claim that there could be systematic associations between school-level climate characteristics and particular instructional practices.
- Subjects
GRADING of students; RATING of students; MIDDLE schools; GIRLS; ABILITY grouping (Education); GRADING (Commercial products)
- Publication
Learning Environments Research, 2000, Vol 3, Issue 3, p229
- ISSN
1387-1579
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1023/A:1011469327430