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Abstract
This study exploits an experimental opportunity to understand whether or not the introduction of multiple grading scheme options enhance college student learning and test performance in a Principles of Economics course. The econometric findings, based on a sample of students enrolled in the Principles of Economics course at Shih Hsin University, Taiwan in the second semester of the 2008 academic year, offer evidence that the availability of the multiple grading scheme options provides a positive effect on student test performance, particularly among the low midterm score students. The two grading scheme options significantly increase the average score in the final examination by 15.65 points among the poor midterm performance students. The results of this study suggest that the adoption of more flexible ways of assigning grades provides motivations for the poor midterm performance students not to give up and to study harder in the second-half of the course.
Notes
1. The Principles of Economics course is the required (core) course to the entire freshmen at SHU. Therefore, all instructors in charge of this course have to propose their teaching plans, including the grading policies they intend to use, to the University. The experiment of the multiple grading scheme options in this study was proposed and approved by the Shih Hsin University Teaching and Research Ethics Committee. The committee members hoped that this pilot study would find positive impacts to the students, and thus could be introduced to other instructors and courses later. The committee members also suggested applying the multiple grading scheme options to the DT students, since the class size was larger, which might lead the empirical findings to be more robust.