REPORTING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT: HOW MANY GRADES?

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Abstract
Summary. This paper presents a scientific rationale for deciding the maximum number of points on a grading scale used for reporting student achievement. It is first proposed that a scale be considered acceptable if a hypothetical retest would lead to at least 90 per cent of the students being regarded within one point of their original grade. The proposed criterion is then used to derive a formula for the maximum number of grades in terms of the standard error of the test score in the special case where the standard error is constant and the grade boundaries are equally spaced, and applications to more general cases are considered. The method is illustrated by applying it to three typical assessment situations, in which the estimated maximum acceptable number of grades is found to vary from 3 to 9.

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