editorially /peaking Decisions When is an apple better than an orange? Most people would answer "never" or think the question nonsensical. Teachers, however, are constantly trying to equate apples with oranges-especially at the end of an academic year. "Grades", the bane of all involved in the educational process, are the arena where teachers thrashout the equivalency of "apples" and "oranges". We know full well that these fruits are not eauivalent and we would not insist that they he made so; yet, teachers' thought processes in the context of eradine often corres~ondto attempts to produce iust such equivalencies. "Grades" have become important in the educational system-because of the multiplemessages they send. The most ohvious message is the evaluation of a student on some reference sca1e:which is often ill-defined in both the mind of the student and of the teacher. Often there is some confusion in the communication between student and teacher-both wavs. One of the "old wives tales" of teaching is that a teacher "knows" the top and bottom students after the first week of classes. Sometimes the problem is to make the final grades reflect these first impre&ons-which are often correct-in an equitable and fair way. For example, the highly gifted student whose performance is only average for any of a number of valid reasons. A basic difficulty in creating a system to evaluate students is the formulation and the unambiguous statement of a scheme that incoroorates a sufficient number of factors assessing important student characteristics. Now there's the catch-important, The "easy" decisions include establishing the equivalencies of homework sets, short quizzes, hour examinations, and the final examination. Then it gets harder. What proportion of the final grade should he assigned to the laboratory part of the course? Factors that reflect the acquisition of knowledge (in the Bloom sense) are more easily quantified and tend to he stressed in evaluation schemes. Yet, experienced teachers know that all of their students are not equally ahle-intellectually and/or psychologically-to deal with a given course a t the particular point in time when the course begins. Where do interest, attitude, persistance, experimental technique, effort, progress, fit ~
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into an evaluation scheme, if anywhere? If such factors are important, how are thev to he weighed relative to the more traditional indicators of knowledge? How are they to he quantified? Do teachers exclude such factors because they are difficult to measure? Difficult (as a whole or individually) to meld into the final evaluation scheme? If interest, effort, progress, and other similar factors are important in the evaluation of a student, what logical thought processes can he used to equate these "oranges" to the collection of "apples" represented by factors that measure knowledge? Most teachers probably take such student characteristics into account, a t least subconsciously, somewhere in the evaluation Drocess: for example. . . thev . mav. he used to helo decide borderfine cases. However, is it ever possible that noncognitive factors alone should or could carry the day? After all, experience shows that knowledge can be learned when i t is needed. That's what we expect of mature learners. For example, an auto mechanic who didn't know about electronic ignition systems when they first appeared acquired the necessary information through a variety of self-study techniques: manuals, seminars, etc. Apparently, mechanics are expected to keep up, and they do, on the basis of self-interest. In the broad sense, so must our students if they are to succeed in a world where knowledge is growing at the rate i t is today. Grades and, indirectly, the grading scheme also send subtle private messages to the student. If the grading scheme incorporates a number of the noncognitive factors, a teacher can, in effect send private messages as disparate as "well done" and "you really ought to consider doing something else." In spite of the admitted difficulties in formulating, incorporating, and evaluating student characteristics in Bloom's affective domain, and others, the return to both teachers and students is well worth the effort. The very process of trying to formulate and to communicate goals and expectations in terms of evaluation certainly will sharpen understanding. It might not he logical to compare apples with oranges, but JJL the effort pays rich dividends for teachers.
Volume 64
Number 7
July 1987
559
