The impact of the pointless system of grading in an undergraduate physiology class

Abstract

The pointless system of assessment is a relatively new concept and few papers have been published demonstrating its usefulness in higher education, particularly in STEM classes. The current study was undertaken to determine the usefulness of this pedagogy in assisting students to master physiological concepts. The hypothesis is that students will respond positively to this assessment and show improved mastery of concepts. All assignments and tests require written answers that involve explanation of concepts and mechanisms. All work, except exams, can be revised, and detailed feedback and rubrics are given for each assignment. Student work is rated as exceeds, meets or approaches expectations. Class work is divided into categories (writing, exams, case studies, lab handouts, lab reports) and each category is rated as exceeds, meets or approaches expectations depending on the overall quality of the work in each category. Final grades are awarded based on a matrix of how many categories are rated at each level as shown in Table 1. [Table: see text] This approach was used in spring 2021 under IRB# LUIRB03022021SS with a physiology class while students were remote. In 2021, all the students revised some of their work and learned from their revisions as evidenced by improved first drafts in subsequent work. Students seemed to master concepts better with this system as 85% of the students scored exceeds expectations on comprehensive mid-term and final exams. Student comments on a reflective writing exercise indicated that most of the students liked this approach despite the perceived increase in workload. Students indicated that they believed they learned the concepts better and they were less concerned about trying to remember minutia. This approach is currently being used for the second time during the spring 2023 semester in a face-to-face physiology course. One goal for this year is to see if the outcomes are similar in a face-to-face class. The first student assignments are due shortly, so summary data for this semester is not yet available. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.