Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

I found really a very interesting article regarding this thread:

"No more negative marking in multiple choice questions"

please, see the attached link:

http://www.ugent.be/en/education/degree/practical/studentadmin/OEREnglish/multiplechoice.htm

I view negative marking to be somewhat arbitrary, and (IMO) we should simply award marks for achieving certain pre-determined requirements. If the marking system is progressive (i.e. it goes from low>high grades), then the better a student performs in a category, then the better mark can be awarded. I used a multi-category mark sheet, that could be used to grade all types of assignment, from essays, to role play or posters, and at various levels.

A basic marking rubric for under-grad and graduate levels may look something like the attached document  :-)

It is not the score, even positive or negative, it is the feedback about his work and effort what has an impact, positive or negtive -it all depends- on the student. Scoring is only a reference that could either be about the effort of the student as about the effort of the teacher and the strategies he/she has applied.

The ultimate goal of any grading system should be to provide students with incentives (positive and/or negative) to influence their level of motivation and engagement, thus advancing their academic performance. In practice, however, assessment per se seems to be the end goal; the potential rewards (i.e. good grades) students seek to gain and the negative consequences (i.e. poor grades) they try to avoid depend solely on their extrinsic motivation toward the learning task. Although this kind of grading system is still prevalent in most educational settings, research in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1987), achievement goal theory (e.g., Midgley et al., 1998), attributional theory (e.g., Weiner, 1985), and various perspectives of expectancy-value theory (e.g., Wigfield & Eccles, 2000) provide strong theoretical and practical evidence against limiting educational assessment to similar traditional grading systems.

Having said so, I think it would be more beneficial, from a motivational perspective, to factor into the rubric all the variables of the grading system, such as ‘language mechanics’. If not, the negative incentive (penalties) associated with this element of assessment would have adverse impact on students’ intrinsic motivation and their learning goal with respect to the actual content of the course.

 The ultimate goal of a grading system has never been motivational. It was and still is a social construct to identify 'good' from 'bad' students. I agree with Carlos. Get rid of grading and just work with feedback to improve. That being said, if we can't get rid of grading because of social pressures, then the system of grading needs to be consistent with the motivational goals that Khalil describes. There are different systems that have different psychological impacts. eg The grading system most commonly used, that has negative motivational impact is one that describes 'How well' a student shows they have learned what was offered. These are usually in the form A to E, 1 to 7, HD to F etc. They are fundamentally comparative, either with other students or with criteria, or a combination of them. A completely different system, which has been used in a very limited way, that in limited testing seems to have fewer negative psychological impacts on students is to decribe 'WHERE' on a continuum of learning a student has reached at any given time. This form of grading always indicates improvement and the possibility of further improvement and more importantly, links effort with improvement helping maintain a growth mindset.

Mark: I like the idea of a continuum.  On the surface it seems little different from saying  where a student is on a scale of e.g. 1-7, but the idea that this is not a final position & that the student can have an opportunity to improve (based on their feedback) is good. I have no idea how this would be managed in terms of work continually being monitored & fed back upon (other than in cases of automated assessment), however for people to make an evaluative judgement on what is good, what is bad, & what lies in between, there is always going to be a requirement for a final 'grade' that acts as a commonly perceived marker.

Actually Nicholas, I did use this system for 5 continuous years in a low SES high school and the workload was acceptable and rather more enjoyable. Even in that time frame it changed the students' perception of school. One of the key comments at the time was that it didn't matter if they were better or worse than anyone else, just as long as they wer improving. Which also is part of my response to your final point. When a student stops learning, they can be judged by where they finished on the continuum. It acts as a final grade but doesn't have to be applied as a seperate judgement with its negative connotations. Students just seem to accept that 'that's were I got to'.

To return to Debra's question, I doubt the usefulness of the whole process described. A better system is to look for evidence of the learnings demonstrated in the writing. The criteria can include something like 'quality of communication' as one lower order aspect but it is not a high order criterion deserving of the focus decribed in Debra's question.

Nice ideas, position of Ghent univerzity is very close to our experiences.

There are a lot of different situations for testing, so some aspect of using negative points can be differnet too. 

But basicaly

- Negative points are some sort of punishmnet, and it brings negative feeling and sensation to student psyche during testing. It cost him some aditional energy, and I will prefer all his energy focused on subject of test.

- Similary, I dont need student to thing about how good and safe his knowledge is during(!) testing (there are better situation when to do this).

- When testing, wrong (and good) answers give me (and the student too) better back feed then "no" resp. "i`m not sure" response

The only situation, when negative points can be considerable, is when guessing can give valid result - passing exam, recieve high rank, be in top of some order. But then you have bad test, or bad idea when testing.

Dear Debra

I think on a positive note,negative scoring can encourage students to review their answers in an effort to avoid or correct mistakes.

It can also yield scores that are not inflated by guesswork from students;hence making scores more reliable for student assessment.

However,the two aspects above can be possible if the severity of the penalty of an incorrect answe given is high relative to the level of reward for a correct answer.

Hi Debra, 

Interesting and valuable earlier comments, all complement and none is exclusive.

I think that the rubric should be clear and explicit on what matters as a process and not necessarily in the final product.

Besides the evaluation of the test results should be formative that is part of a continuous process, so that the negative result on an examination is a guide, is a door for improvement and not be like falling into an abyss without possibility of return.

Evaluations should allow continuous assessment processes results over time.

greetings

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesantes y valiosos comentarios previos, todos se complementan y ninguno es excluyente.

Yo opino que la rúbrica debe ser clara y explícita en lo que interesa como proceso y no necesariamente en el producto final.

Además la valoración de los resultados de un examen debe ser formativa, que sea parte de un proceso continuo, de manera que el resultado negativo en un examen sea una guía, sea una puerta para lograr mejoras y que no sea como caerse a un abismo sin posibilidad de retorno.

Las evaluaciones deben permitir procesos continuos de valoración de resultados a lo largo del tiempo.

Saludos

Dear Debra, Dear All,

It is true that rubrics are often used to grade students' work but they ought to teach besides evaluating. When this subject is raised by students who scored low, I usually become informal telling them that grades do not come out from my pocket & I just watch and record who is the first, the second,…, and the last in this educational "race". By convincing, I help students to develop understanding & skill, as well as make reliable judgments about the quality of their own work. The majority of them accept that there has been low quality performance which ended in failure but you may have one or two students every few years who will say that the teacher has penalized him/them deliberately & unfairly. Such odd person(s) will never learn the lesson or progress.

Negative logoc in cybernetics is matter of relativity. A threshold may be required to understand the negative influence. But who decides the threshold would matter a lot. So I am non committal on its consequence.

o

O

I agree with Nicholas. Mark's 'Continuum Learning' approach to students' assessment is a great idea and it may very well reduce the negative implications of the traditional grading system, especially on motivation and engagement. This approach perfectly fits within the achievement goal theory as it helps students focus on their learning goals instead of performance goals (i.e., getting higher grades).

The assessment of the answers on tests is a complex system that includes not only previous experience of the teacher, but the student's prior experience, and the conditions prevailing in the environment in which the evaluation takes place.

Often they are driving education systems and high learning achievements ask your system but in practice promote achieving high grades. This duality is harmful to real learning and perceives evaluations as opportunities for improvement.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

La valoración de las respuestas en los exámenes es un sistema complejo que abarca no solo la experiencia previa del profesor, sino la experiencia previa del estudiante, y las condiciones que prevalecen en el medio en el que se desarrolla la evaluación.

Muchas veces los sistemas educativos impulsan y piden logros de aprendizaje altos pero su sistema en la práctica promueve el logro de altas calificaciones. Esto es una dualidad nociva para el verdadero aprendizaje y percibir las evaluaciones como oportunidades de mejora.

Hi Debra, 

As long as you think in terms of NEGATIVE score, then your feedback will be taken negatively. I like to say "did not meet all of the objectives". The same term can be used if someone fails a class. Grading should always point out the good, and coach the student into gaining insight on what would improve his/her endeavor. If you are looking for journals on this subject, try ERIC. 

negative feedback is not good, It is better yo point out areas of improvement and cite possible sources of information

Dear Debra,

Mark deduction is a negative reinforcement which doesn't work in the long run. There is no justification to reduce / deduct marks that a student has scored due to his hard work.

Lot of mark deductions are carried out for issues like attendance, submitting work on time, behavior (yes!!) etc. If you must really 'deduct marks, a better way is to allocate marks for these as well right at the beginning and let the students 'earn' these by being punctual, submitting their work of time or being at the best of their behavior. This way, you are actually rewarding them for their deeds which leads to a positive reinforcement.

Suitable for Behaviour assessment

Schools can configure negative behaviour incidents with negative score, allow teachers to assign behaviour incidents throughout the term, integrate into the score with access to Parents to view.

http://vsware.ie/benefits/

Negative marking is a negative idea. Can you correct the behavior through punishment. How absurd is the idea when, for instance, there are two students and one of these makes an effort but fails to represent the reality exactly as seen by others and gets negatively punished. At the same time the one who does not learn and does not attempts to but gets a result better than the first one by virtue of not making wrongs because she also does not make goods. Does not she get rewarded for not doing anything? What with IIT entrance test in India? Sometime you allow admission to students with negative scores? Compare this with another test conducted by the Union Public Service Commission of India where there is no negative marking as the candidate is encouraged to do what she can do without fear of losing as the actual life demands from a person to put out as much efforts as possible. The latter promotes the hidden talent of the examinee.

Is the learning like bullets in the gun? So when your target misses you lose your arsenal... Rather, education is a process of continuous optimism, improvement, and enrichment. So stop with negative assessment altogether. Let the learners get a balanced appraisal of where they need more improvement and how.

Thanks.

I agree with some of the previous contributors that clarification of the content of the marking rubrics right from the out set can reduce negative thinking. Personally, I do not see objective marking and feedback to be negative in any way. It is not uncommon to have students that would not follow guidance. So, if the marking rubric is clear and expectations have been clarified right from the beginning, I do not see anything wrong in marking objectively and feedback also provided constructively. I think students benefit a lot from objective and constructive feedback. If possible, students with extremely low marks/grades can be invited for a chat so as to determine why things have gone terribly wrong for them. Doing that would also assist instructors to devise other means to assist students to improve academically.

Absolutely!!!  Unless you plan on them living on an alien planet when the get to be an adult.  Can you imagine how devastating it would be to go through life without any negativity and then, Bam, INTO THE REAL WORLD WE GO?????

The idea that the real world is negative and students need to get used to it, is a bit of a furphy. Resilience - the ability to rebound from negative events is not developed as a result of being treated negatively. It is developed by being treated positively, to help one recognize their personal value and understand their strengths AND weaknesses. True, resilience is also not developed by dishonestly telling people that they are uremittingly wonderful either, but there is a middle road called reasonablehonest feedback. Also, maybe the so called real world would benefit by not treating people so negatively.

I think that the question at this discussion is if you (or student) are thinking in “negative scoring” as some kind of “punishment” or as an indicator that some work did not get the waited (for teacher AND student) result. “Negative scoring” does not affect to student by itself but in conjunction with the attitude of both, educator and learner.

----

The second aspect to consider is to distinguish also between

• Measurement
• Assessment
• Evaluation.

 A negative score could be a measure obtained from some kind of student work, assessed as “negative” under some criteria. But this is not the EVALUATION result, which includes other aspects, as effort, limits, context, etc.  

An evaluation report cannot be reduced to a negative number o letter. The EVALUATION is dialogue between teacher and student, a positive conversation where they discuss the reason of negative or positive assessment and the future path to suite both, teacher and student, together.

-----

And a third approach to this question: at “Beyond Freedom and Dignity”, Skinner (1971) distinguish between “punishment” and negative feedback. This is an old and criticized text but with some very interesting ideas.

Interesting question and debate. I would agree with the comment that negative scoring is just that negative. Most people do not respond to negative comments all it does is to make them defensive. The key is how to approach and offer guidance with positive comments to deal with a negative outcome. This takes in my opinion a little more effort to understand what is going on with the student. The student might be putting in significant effort but is just missing a link to fully understanding the objective. A negative score might very well be viewed and  demotivate the student. The old saying, "turning a negative into a positive" I believe is the best way to address these situations.

In my opinion, negative scoring might be a pushing point for enthusiastic students who are not used to fail. On the other hand, if it continues it will just be a habit!

Mohammad

I believe it will be alright if the penalties are added to the rubrics.This makes one aware of what to expect.I am saying this because some of us go through a hell of time a mist tears before we can send in a single assignment(living in a country when electricity is a big challenge)  so if after all what you do the work done is on the down side it really breaks one down. All the same as our instructors have promise to assist in answering our questions we can also personally send them mails for more clarity.

 Mere learning from text books is not a right setup for college education. Even in schools there are activities that students need to do at home and submit. At a bachelors level, students need to learn, apply certain fundamentals and also cross learn through peer interactions. The frequency of such learning activities may be kept at a adequate number to suit certain constraints, but it should be mandatory to have home learning activities.

In BITS Pilani, we used have 4 evaluation components in each semester : EC2 - Mid Term; EC4 - Final; EC1 & EC3 had off-classroom activities, which required intense contribution.

May be as a student, we would have grumbled then, but post-studies, their impact is always felt.

A rubric should contain the grading criteria for the assessment. When a student looks at it, he or she should know the relative value of the various criteria. Adding a new criterion after-the-fact invalidates the scoring rubric. Grading transparency, consistency, and fairness are three of the main reasons for using rubrics. Adding a previously unannounced criterion spray paints over the transparent window of a grading schema and will leave students feeling cheated.

Perhaps a better alternative to 'negative grading' would be to implement a final review of the work, using a dedicated rubric. The review would be worth 5-10% of the assignment grade, and be devoted solely to mechanics (grammar, spelling, and style). This final review would function much like a theater company's  dress rehearsal, held a night or two before their opening performance.The director is able to see the performance from start to finish and look for minor problems that undermine the quality of the performance.

In the case of a writing assignment, the work would be complete in terms of content and structure and you as the instructor would be able to focus solely on the writing mechanics. You would have already given feedback (now incorporated) on content, structure, etc.so this final, a low-stakes review applies a spotlight to a less vital but still valuable aspect of student writing.

Newspapers use this method to churn out masses of printed information daily. A reporter writes, a metro or city editor edits for content, returns the story to the reporter, who sends it back. When the metro editor is satisfied the story is accurate, balanced, and readable, they forward it to a copy editor who reads it for grammar, style, and length. This draft or final, graded review would be similar to a copy edit.

Greetings from Finland.

I found it really interesting reading the replies and especially to see how different educators from different countries see their role as an educator. I was often reminded of the work of the work of John Biggs regarding levels of teachers and how teachers view their role and professional identity. It seems that many of those responding seem to view their role in alignment with level 1 in Biggs hierarchy (Biggs 1999, Chapter 4) with a focus that their role is to measure what the student is –

"A teacher's responsibility is to know the content well and to expound it clearly. Thereafter, it's up to the students. When students don't learn… it is due to something the students are lacking"

I find this really very interesting as this has never been my own professional identity in almost 30 years as a teacher. I see us as being there to help them learn. Formative assessment with feedback, critique and details of why and how something could be improved can help students move forward. I really do not see how negative marks fit into that framework.

My comment here is not meant to be critical of those who have responded above, we each work in different context and have (clearly) very different ideas about our role as educators and even differences about what it means to ‘learn’.

One part of my argument against negative marks is that we need the next generation to be much better than us, not the same. We have done a fine job of screwing the world up in so many different ways. The last thing we need is to replicate another generation like ourselves! We need to have students who are prepared to take risks, think creatively and critically, who challenge and question everything. So if we have grading schemes that penalize those who do not conform to the solution we expect to see, in other words, that penalize failure, then we just get more of the same. Humans learn through failing, students need to know how to fail and education should be the place where it is safe to fail as part of the learning process. But of course, that is just my opinion.

I have linked to the first of 3 short videos that pretty well sum the ideas of Biggs.  I quite like these and hope they might add to the debate.

https://youtu.be/iMZA80XpP6Y

Hallo, I am going to try and provide a short answer. No, I do not think so. In fact, I am beginning to wonder if we should score them at all? Rather provide the opportunities to perform better than their personal best, and then they score their peers ....

What is the purpose of scoring? Why do you put scores on their exams or other evaluative measures? If the objective is to determine how much they have learned or test how well they have learned, will negative scoring meet that objective? If not, then negative scoring will not be beneficial to both you and the students, specially when the final scores are the ones that will determine  whether they will be given a passing grade or not.

No, it cannot benefit student at all.

"I've Learned That people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou

Evaluation is a very important in the learning process, as important step if you are not well aligned with the objectives, or the process by which we approach the objectives, nor is aligned with the resources they use will have lost not only time but have lost intentions of someone learning values.

The negative assessment should be framed in this intention of encouraging learning, encouraging closer to the experience of the enjoyment of knowing. If we fail to thrill to advance to a student if we fail the student receives a light on the negative assessment, a light that warns you that there is change course and that there is still time to improve, it is possible that a feeling of rejection appears the process of learning.

No matter how the teacher uses the negative assessment, but as the student makes her feel.

When I am teaching for mastery, I mark in detail areas/items requiring revision, including spelling, grammar, etc and return work to students for resubmission.  Some students even at the college level never received this type of feedback at the elementary or secondary levels.  I have in mind what good work looks like and require that students meet that level in order to get a grade.  If marking is done only to establish a grade, then the goal is not mastery but just sorting.  Students can improve dramatically when coached.  Same situation with article manuscript reviewers:  some reviewers give no feedback other than general complaints while others give detailed corrections and advice that contribute to improvement.  General comments are lazy responses. A teacher's job is to teach and increase the value of student abilities and skills.  As a tutor I can do the same thing (ID errors and have student make corrections). When a student resubmits work (sometimes more than once), I have grading options:

1.  No penalty  

2. Average the submissions  

3. With 3 submissions, use the middle score (median).

I do not want to discourage the student when I know the ability is there.  Good work must be recognized and valued.  In real life we often get do-overs.  Students need to know what is expected.  This process of cleaning up takes a lot of time at the beginning of the course but saves time after the first few scoring submissions.  The products at the end of the course are something I can be proud of for each of my students (future teachers) and for myself as a professional.

The same process applies to quizzes with retakes using alternate forms.

Every student should keep a personal list of words misspelled and constantly clean up the list.  Spelling problems are fatal  to a career, and even dyslexics can trace three to five new words a day and review words learned earlier when written large (3-4" letters finger tracing by forcing the entire arm to move; after 5-10 tracings and pronouncing the word--never spell the word--close eyes and write it with the finger in the air 5 times).  This is the ancient Roman Quintillian's process with a wax tablet and it works well today. This method was adopted by the remedial pioneer, Grace Fernald at UCLA.  Spelling is visualized as a whole word.  Do not orally spell the word --say the word and stretch out the pronunciation orally.  

Build skills and confidence.

In my view, negative scoring can stimulate only the strong students, it doesn't work well for Thai students who are very weak. Thai students have been taught to be the winner , not to be lost. It is not a good thing, actually. 

Greetings from India,Tamilnadu,Madurai,Nagamalai

 I am also thinking about this for a long time - Instead reducing score for negative scoring the time limit may be reduced in terms of seconds, Ex.30 seconds per wrong answer during the exam itself. so participant may be knowing it is wrong and become alert and answering with atmost care in the remaining time. because present day mostly online exam with timer. I hope this will not hurt the participants. But reducing marks affect the students psychology for long time

As Suzette and others I agree that feedback is very important part of education. Students have to spend many hours reviewing books and notes, prepering for exams, finalizing projects. They have to know the rules: they really have to learn anatomy at medicine faculty. Unless they do it, they can not go on.

However everything have to be with positive goals and in positive atmosphere. The motto of our university is: Quod bonum, felix, faustum, fortunatumque sit. And I hope we try to do it so: teaching for good and welfare.

the student should be informed of the course on syllabus, about the grading scale, tests, graded assignments, due dates, and penalties for not completing graded assignments.

http://www.cur.org/assets/1/7/tapping_potential_final_web.pdf

However, different situation is for pupils in early school (and pre-school) education. There have to be paid much more attention to every message we give to children. Our assessment can not be negative, because than kids lose their motivation with lifelong consequences.

According to Maria Montessori educational principles I agree in this age with education through positive motivation, important role of work, play, art and movement., motivation by self-assessment during various activities, positive influence of enviroment... 

Jitka, and yet, when children are discouraged they have no opportunity to choose to stop going to school, while adults can react away from her. Knowles said that the andragogical education, intrinsic motivation faced with discouraging space creates a very quick reation of rejection and frustration in a learning process.

Sir Ken Robinson frequently mentions how children have a greater chance of facing challenges and confront their mistakes with a great capacity for creativity and that this should be sought in undergraduate education and adult education in promoting a positive feedback .

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jitka, y aún más, cuando los niños que se desmotivan ellos no tienen posibilidad de decidir dejar de ir a la escuela, mientras que los adultos pueden reaccionar alejandose de ella. Knowles, explica que en la educación andragogica, la motivación íntrinseca enfrentada con un espacio desmotivador crea una reación muy rápida de rechazo y frustración en un proceso de aprendizaje.

Sir Ken Robinson hace frecuentemente mención de la manera como los niños tienen una posibilidad mayor de afrontar retos y enfrentar sus errores con una gran capacidad de creatividad y que esto debe ser buscado en la educación del pregrado y en la educación de adultos impulsando una retroalimentación positiva.

Lloyd, we didn't have seen a lot of time to