We've known for years that handing out grades might not help our kids. Perhaps it was when we saw the look on our students' faces upon the return of their paper or, maybe, the look on our own child's face when we talked through their semester report. But grades don't just hurt the kid - they actually harm learning itself.

In the 1980s, research (Butler 1988) uncovered that grades affect a student's ego so much that the ideal grade to receive is a B…

A 'B' grade is enough to stroke the ego but not too high that the student stops putting in an effort.

If that's the case, perhaps we should give everyone a B… but then that would defeat the purpose and change the outcome.

A decade later, Butler conducted even more research. In this study, all the students were given two tasks, almost exactly the same.

Upon completion of the first task, one group of students were only given grades, whereas the other students were given grades with comments.

The students who were given only grades for the first task showed no improvement when completing the second task.

Not only that but the group that received comments and grades also showed no improvement between the first and second task. Those with high grades certainly worked harder in the follow-up class - but those with lower grades showed less interest in the follow-up class.

The only improvement occurred in a new study round when students who received feedback without an accompanying grade showed significant improvement in their follow-up task.

Nossal High School in Melbourne has for years done grading differently. '[We found] that as soon as we put a grade on anything the feedback about how to improve learning seems to be ignored, which is what [Professor] Dylan Wiliam has shown in his research,' Assistant Principal Sue Harrap, Nossal High School, Melbourne.

"A number of studies that show that a students' willingness to take on challenging tasks diminishes when grades are involved, but without grades, students left on their own tend to seek out more challenging problems."

So why do we keep up the charade, and bring it down the years to our youngest students? Does your school just stay safe and keep the status-quo or do you do something more effective, based on what works better?

Butler, R. (1988) Enhancing and Undermining Intrinsic Motivation: The Effects of Task-Involving and Ego-Involving Evaluation on Interest and Performance: https://lnkd.in/eg-EP8VX

Desi, Ryan & Williams (1996) Need satisfaction and the self-regulation of learning: https://lnkd.in/eenH9kPP

Harter, S. (1978) Pleasure Derived from Challenge and the Effects of Receiving Grades on Children's Difficulty Level Choices: https://lnkd.in/eepxbMAH