An Experiment with a Plus-and-Minus System of Marking

Abstract

In Flathead County High School, Kalispell, Montana, during the school year 1929-30 three teachers experimented with a plus-andminus system of marking as opposed to marks showing degrees of excellence. Each of these teachers had one class in which the passing mark was plus and the failing mark was minus. There was a general feeling among the teachers in this school that too often the pupil simply works for a mark and is not greatly interested in the work itself. They believed that marks are too much a matter of guesswork to have much meaning, and no two teachers could agree on the standards to be used for different marks. The purpose of the experiment was to determine whether pupils will work without the stimulus of marks. The results of the study were somewhat conflicting, but they were of sufficient interest to influence two of the teachers to experiment further. The teachers worked out no definite rules for the carrying-out of the experiment except that each pupil should receive either a passing mark of plus or a failing mark of minus. The normal-curve system of marking is more or less rigidly adhered to in this school, I, 2, 3, and 4 being passing marks and 5 failure. The marks of all pupils in the classes in business practice were averaged together in one normal curve. The percentages of pupils in all these classes who during the school year 1929-30 received averages of i, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and the corresponding percentages in the experimental class, in which plus and minus marks were used, are given in Table I. The average intelligence quotient of all the classes was ioi, while the average intelligence quotient of the experimental class was 1o3. The difference between the intelligence quotients was too slight to cause an appreciable difference in the results. The marks in the 6i