A recent article on "equitable grading" from the WSJ got me re-thinking about a brief reflective piece I wrote considering achievement goal theory and the practice of ungrading. In particular, I was thinking through how mastery and performance goals may or may not align with ungrading as it is practiced by some. A quick encounter with mastery and performance goals may lead to the assumption that mastery = good and performance = bad. Research on students has shown this to not always be the case. The WSJ article notes assumptions of intrinsic motivation in students as well as a drive for mastery that are proving complicated in an equitable grading system. Anyways, I'm pasting my initial thoughts below for what they are worth.
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In her review of the edited collection, Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to do Instead), Rachel Toor summarizes: “One of the main things that comes through in each of the disparate essays is something that seems as if it should go without saying: These teachers trust their students. They believe that students want to learn. And they feel that grades are not a good motivational tool and are often at odds with real learning.” What follows in the review and echoes throughout the edited collection is a clear opposition between a learning-oriented classroom and a grade-oriented classroom. The practice of “ungrading,” according to Toor and many others, reorients the classroom around “real learning.” In terms of Achievement Goal Theory (AGT), “ungrading” appears to shift the achievement goals of a classroom towards mastery (real learning) and away from performance (graded assessment). However, are grades truly at opposition with “real learning” and, further, are grades hindering student motivation to learn? In what follows, I use AGT to unpack the claims of “ungrading” advocates, and, perhaps more importantly, use AGT as a way to combat the either/or positioning of “ungrading” as “real learning” versus grading as limited learning.
In general, according to Senko (2016), within Achievement Goal Theory, “students’ achievement goals represent their broad purpose or reason for engaging in a learning task” (2). In particular, these goals provide “meaning to students’ experience, linking and orchestrating their thoughts, emotions, and behavior into a coherent pattern of learning” (Senko, 2016, 2). This theory categorizes goals into two general categories: mastery and performance. As Senko (2016) describes, mastery goals “reflect a desire to develop competence by improving or learning as much as one can” (2) and depict ability as “malleable and increased through effort” (Senko, 2016, 3). Performance goals, in contrast, “reflect a desire to demonstrate existing competence by outperforming peers” (Senko, 2016, 2) and positions ability as relatively fixed. Unsurprisingly, as Senko (2016) notes, mastery goals “should match or surpass performance goals in producing all desirable educational outcomes” (3). And early researchers within AGT, as outlined by Urdan and Kaplan (2020), echoed this in their arguments that “schools should emphasize learning and personal growth (i.e., mastery goals) over competition and social comparison (i.e., performance goals)” (3).
It should come as no surprise that proponents of “ungrading,” also referred to as contract grading or de-grading, among other names, have implicitly, in many cases, latched onto the dichotomy between mastery versus performance goal orientation. Throughout Susan D. Blum’s (2020) introduction to Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to do Instead) we see this dichotomy emphasized, in language such as “learning rather than compliance” (4) and “educating all students, not ranking them” (5). In motivational theory terminology, Blum (2020) and others position mastery versus performance goals as encouraging intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. In turn, numerous educators have adopted the practice of “ungrading,” positioning an emphasis on mastery goals over performance goals, as the larger goal of the education “enterprise,” leading educators and schools to encourage the “real learning of real individual learners, rather than imposing an arbitrary method of sorting” (Blum, 2020, xxii).
As an educator, it is hard not to feel excited and energized by re-committing to “real learning” and welcoming in this practice of “ungrading.” And while I have witnessed the positive outcomes of developing intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation in my students’, as well as my own children’s, orientation towards learning, I am hesitant to abandon grading and, more specifically, I am hesitant to see learning and motivation in either/or frameworks. Without using the language of AGT, proponents of “ungrading” have, in many cases, layered intrinsic/extrinsic motivation or real/arbitrary learning or growth/fixed mindsets onto the “ungrading”/grading debate, without a consideration of this movement in light of AGT. Before accepting “ungrading” and denying grading, it is worth (briefly) examining three areas of the “ungrading” movement in light of AGT: research and empirical evidence; an either/or mindset; and the context of critical pedagogy.
Much of the research supporting “ungrading” is focused on intrinsic over extrinsic motivation or research finding issues with traditional practices of grading and ranking students. There is a shortage of clear evidence pointing to the educational gains promoted by “ungrading.” Susan Blum (2020) herself admits, “It is certainly very difficult to measure the affective and social gains that accompany a rich semester of immersive learning” (9). Throughout the edited collection, Ungrading, much of the evidence to support the practice is anecdotal, citing critiques and opinion pieces. Much of the empirical evidence cited in the collection or elsewhere points to the limits of grading, especially in terms of motivation. In addition, we see many proponents, such as oft-cited educators like Jesse Stommel, promoting the practice of “ungrading” because it fits with their approach to teaching: “I believe pedagogy is personal and idiosyncratic” (Stommel, 2018), rather than findings from empirical research studies.
This lack of recent research supporting the practice of “ungrading” is not surprising. As researchers investigating the benefits of mastery over performance goals note, in-situ studies within classrooms and schools highlight “quite modest” results (Urdan and Kaplan, 2020, 3). In a study focused on emphasizing mastery over performance goals in a middle and elementary school, Urdan and Kaplan (2020) report, “[T]he effect on student outcomes was sparse, with only slight differences in performance goal endorsement favoring students who went to the treatment rather than the control middle school” (3). In a review of AGT, Senko (2016) spends time exploring the benefits of performance goals, especially findings connecting performance goals as “predict[ing] academic achievement more reliably than do mastery goals” (5). What these researchers note is the difficulty of situational studies investigating mastery and performance goals, as well as the limited findings that mastery goal interventions outperform performance goal interventions. Within the “ungrading” community, more studies are needed investigating this intervention. Claiming teaching is personal and, in turn, idiosyncratic does not warrant valuing “ungrading” over grading or mastery goals over performance goals.
In much of the discussion of “ungrading,” we see the practice in stark contrast to grading. Educators are to choose between one or the other in this either/or fallacy. For example, Susan D. Bloom (2020) presents the dichotomy between learning and compliance, between authentic and mechanistic learning, and between progressive and scientific approaches. In the opening of her chapter, Bloom (2020) even includes a quote from a student laying out the either/or vision of assessment: “Instead of focusing on getting a good grade, I focused on actually learning the material. I was less stressed out, and more interested in the actual class content” (1). Jesse Stommel (2020) echoes this view: “My goal in eschewing grades has been to more honestly engage student work rather than simply evaluate it” (27).
This depiction of “ungrading” as the antithesis to grading, as authentic versus inauthentic learning, even relies on the language of AGT. Susan D. Bloom (2020), for example, depicts “ungrading” as “emphasizing mastery rather than arbitrary deadlines and measures” (4). Within the research related to mastery and performance goal orientation this dichotomy does not hold up. Much research hypothesizing a mastery goal orientation as preferred and more successful compared to a performance goal orientation has lacked clear evidence of the dichotomy in actual learning environments, even after interventions. As Urdan and Kaplan (2020) note, “[I]t is perhaps not surprising that achievement goal interventions have not yielded particularly strong or definitive results” (4). In presenting a multiple goals perspective, Senko (2016) explains that some studies showed that “performance goals predicted academic achievement more strongly than mastery goals” (4). More importantly, many of these studies “showed that mastery and performance goals are somewhat positively correlated, not opposing” (4).
Such research highlights the danger of binary thinking in educational contexts. Education, and even individual pedagogy, need not be an either/or situation. To discard grading in favor of “ungrading,” under the assumption that “ungrading” represents authentic, real learning, as opposed to grading’s inauthentic, mechanistic rating system is problematic. And, most importantly, this thinking assumes quite a bit about students’ learning that seems unsupported by research on mastery and performance goal orientation. As Paul, et. al. (2021) posit, “The tendency for the majority of the students to pursue mastery and performance goal orientations simultaneously as opposed to a single type of goal orientation indicated that they were motivated to learn but were also concerned about how their performance in class was compared to their peers” (673). The researchers conclude that a one-size-fits-all approach, in this case to argumentative writing, is to be avoided. Such research, it appears, cautions against the either/or approach promoted by many “ungraders,” and especially questions the ungrading approach in writing classrooms.
Many practitioners of “ungrading” move beyond the apparent pedagogical benefits of removing grades and position “ungrading” as a more fair, equitable, and critical approach to learning. Jesse Stommel (2020) claims, “Grades reinforce teacher/student hierarchies (and institution/teacher hierarchies) while exacerbating other problematic power relationships. Women, POC, disabled people, neurodiverse people are all ill-served by a destructive culture of grading and assessment.” In turn, proponents such as Stommel, see “ungrading” as exemplifying the types of critical pedagogy espoused by scholars such as Paulo Friere. Stommel (2020) writes, “I believe an actively anti-racist, anti-misogynist, anti-ableist approach is more effective than supposedly ‘objective’ approaches like blind grading (which just maintain the status quo, rather than accounting for privilege or marginalization).”
Similarly, early scholars in the field of AGT were drawn to the theory’s potential for reconsidering the purpose of schools. The duality of mastery versus performance goals reflected the duality of politics and education in the United States. As Urdan and Kaplan (2020) describe, “Some of the developers of achievement goal theory were quite straightforward in their ideologies and did not shy away from framing the theoretical discussion in moral and ethical terms” (3). These researchers saw achievement goal theory as a way to promote social justice, as a “vehicle for examining, critiquing, and addressing educational inequity” (Urdan and Kaplan, 2020, 3). However, numerous studies examining the influence of achievement goal orientation on students, especially diverse student populations, has proven inconclusive. Summarizing such work, Urdan and Kaplan (2020), note, “universal constructs like mastery and performance goals may function differently in different cultural contexts” (4). Assuming a mastery goal orientation is most effective for all student in all contexts, fails to take into account the diversity of student populations. As Urdan and Kaplan (2020) explain, “The goals that students develop and pursue depend, in part, on how their self-definitions (i.e., their identity) are intertwined with their perceptions about the avenues for success and accomplishment that are available to them” (9). This caution towards a singular understanding of goal orientation, devoid of learners’ identity, context, etc. may also apply to the “ungrading” movement’s social justice underpinnings, a pre-determined assumption regarding student learning preferences and goals.
To be clear, there is much to appreciate and emulate in the “ungrading” movement. Most educators, including myself, will admit to the detrimental and limiting role grades play in our classrooms. However, creating an either/or fallacy regarding learning echoes assumptions regarding student achievement goal orientations. As noted, AGT researchers caution against assumptions regarding the primacy of mastery to performance goal orientations. Specific contexts and learners are unique and bring different histories, identities, and learning goals and preferences to our classrooms. We are doing a disservice to students if we create a dichotomy between grading and “ungrading” without recognizing the nuance between such pedagogical approaches and, in addition, the ways in which mastery and performance goals can complement each other and learners’ experiences. Perhaps the mixed goals approach provides a framework for a future mixed assessment approach,which also recognizes the institutions and larger framework within which education, educators, and students exist and trust each other.
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