Our current system has turned higher education into a game that students win when they obtain the most coveted rewards—that is, high grades—for putting in the least amount of time and effort. -Linda B. Nilson, Ph.D.
What is Mastery Grading?
Students are assessed on whether they meet a threshold, i.e. mastery
Each assignment has rubrics that establishes the threshold
There is no partial credit
Students are allowed retakes for assessments
Course Background
First upper division course for Computer Engineering and Software Engineering majors
Spring 2022 taught two sections with 34 and 49 respectively (N=83)
10%-30% non-majors
How I applied Mastery Grading?
I created several assessment categories
Each category specifies how many assignments need to pass to earn letter grade
Created a currency called Tokens to limit revisions and add flexibility to their learning
Quizzes
Homeworks
Project
Exams
Letter Grade Mapping
Assignments were graded on a tertiary system: needs revision, low pass, and high pass
A student needs to meet the grade for every category to earn that grade
Results
Method & Goal
We survey students at regular intervals during the semester
We wanted to know how students attitude toward mastery grading evolved over time
Student Survey Distributions
Student Survey Distributions
First and last survey
Students felt they had the background knowledge to succeed
Understood how to to improve their grade
Median did not prefer mastery over other assessments
Results of all Surveys
Results of survey questions taken at five time points
We converted the likert scale to range from -2 to +2 and averaged
What did we learn?
Need to invest in student buy-in and possibly departmental buy-in
Course preparation is time consuming, but it can be done in stages
Need to give consideration of how well your assessments map to the course learning outcomes