Questions (and Answers) for Incorporating Nontraditional Grading in Your Statistics Courses

Abstract

Nontraditional grading methods have recently become more common, and as with any large pedagogical shift, there are a number of questions to consider when applying a new grading scheme to a course. This article summarizes four types of nontraditional grading and shares experiences from the authors who have applied them to a variety of courses in statistics. This article is structured as a set of questions and answers, seeking to address many of the concerns and considerations that one may face as they transition a course’s grading structure. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Keywords

• Assessment
• Contract grading
• Specifications grading
• Standards-based grading
• Statistics education
• Ungrading