Contract Grading Research Articles

Use of Contract Grading to Improve Grades Among College Freshmen in Introductory Psychology

The use of behavioral techniques in college teaching has declined during the past three decades. The purpose of this study was to compare a behaviorally based grading approach with a traditional point-based system. A total of 40 college freshmen were randomly assigned to a Traditionally Graded or Contract Graded Introductory Psychology course. Contract graded students were one third as likely to fail or withdraw, 3 times more likely to earn an A grade, and were more likely to perceive a high degree of control over their grade. These findings support use of a contract grading system in the contemporary college classroom.

Contract grading with mastery learning in CS 1

Mastery learning as an educational technique can be successfully used in a CS 1 course. Instructors explicitly predetermine the skills and knowledge required for varying levels of mastery. Incorpor...

A Unilateral Grading Contract to Improve Learning and Teaching

Contract grading has achieved some prominence in our field as a practice associated with critical pedagogy. In this context we describe a hybrid grading contract where students earn a course grade of B based not on our evaluation of their writing quality but solely on their completion of the specified activities. The contract lists activities we’ve found most reliable in producing B-quality writing over fourteen weeks. Higher grades are awarded to students who produce exemplary portfolios. Thus we freely give students lots of evaluative feedback on their writing, but students can count on a course grade of B if they do all the required activities—no matter our feedback. Our goal in using contracts is to enable teachers and students to give as much attention as possible to writing and as little as possible to grades.

Critical Pedagogy Is Too Big to Fail

This essay responds to Jane Danielewicz’s and Peter Elbow’s recent piece on contract grading in College Composition and Communication (December 2009). I discuss the similarities of their approach to my own contract process, finding that we share a quantitative/performative method for grading. I also explore our differences. While they guarantee students a B grade for meeting quantitative minimums and do not judge writing quality unless it is “better than B,” I grade writing along the full spectrum A-F. I also negotiate the syllabus and grading system instead of announcing it unilaterally, so as to position students as stakeholders who co-author the terms of the contract. Finally, I argue the value of negotiated contracts in light of the neo-liberal capture of school and society.

Choice in the classroom

Not all decisions that an instructor makes about a course are well-founded and set in stone. Indeed, for some decisions, students can be empowered with choices that allow them to take control of some aspects of their coursework. We describe two techniques for accomplishing this: time banks and contract weighting. Time banks are a way of allowing students to customize assignment deadlines; contract weighting is a novel derivation of contract grading which allows students to set their own assignment weights. Both have been tried in the classroom, and proffer benefits to the students and the instructor. Surprisingly, neither requires much effort from the instructor to implement. We report on six years' worth of experience with times banks and one year of experience with contract weighting.

Practice Makes Perfect: Contracting Quantity and Quality

Contract grading promotes quality writing as well as a large quantity of writing. In fact, teachers can use contract grading to support and promote the behaviors, thinking skills, and writing skills they believe will help students create quality writing.

Contract Grading: Encouraging Commitment to the Learning Process through Voice in the Evaluation Process

Contract grading allows students to make important choices about what, how, and when to learn, thereby facilitating the development of a partnership learning environment in which students are likely to retain more information, make better use of information, and be more highly motivated to learn than in teacher-directed learning environments. This article argues the central role of contract grading in postmodern pedagogy and discusses in depth how to implement contract grading efficiently and effectively. It also addresses a significant benefit of using contract grading: Students learn multiple fundamental management concepts and skills experientially by engaging in the contract grading process.

Instructional Note: Contracting English Composition: It Only Sounds Like an Illness

Describes a system of contract grading in an introductory college composition which the author devised and has used for two years, in which all students sign a contract that delineates requirements for a course grade of “B.” Discusses these requirements, how students can raise their grade, and student responses. Notes that a continued dialog about students’ writing is often the quite satisfying result.

Combined Assessment Model for EAP Writing Workshop: Portfolio Decision-Making, Criterion-Referenced Grading, and Contract Negotiation

An assessment model that combines portfolio decision-making with criterion-referenced grading is described as applied in an EAP (English for Academic Purposes) pre-university ESL writing program. In this model, portfolio decision-making is combined with criterion-referenced assessment. The portfolio concept is valuable in that learners are encouraged to "own" and to make decisions about their work. At the same time, criterion-referenced assessment allows teachers to set meaningful, consistent standards while encouraging learner self- and peer assessment. Learner involvement may be further encouraged through the use of contract grading and collaborative revision of grading criteria. For academically oriented adult ESL learners, in particular, this assessment scheme encourages learner control while keeping performance-based standards at desirable levels.

The impact of student goal orientation in physical education classes.

The theory of achievement motivation suggests that students whose goals are related to the mastery of a task are more likely to engage in adaptive patterns of behavior such as choosing challenging tasks and focusing on effort. Students whose goal orientations are ego-involved are more apt to avoid challenge and be unwilling to expend effort. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact that goal perspective has in physical education classes. Subjects (N = 90) were college students in beginning tennis classes. They completed a skill pretest and the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (Duda, 1992). A system of contract grading was employed to yield an indication of students' selection of challenging tasks. The points earned toward the contracts were used as an indicant of in-class behavior. At the end of the semester, students completed a skill posttest and a cognitive processes questionnaire. A task-involved goal perspective was associated with the selection of more challenging tasks and positive scores on the questionnaire. Those two variables, in turn, were significant predictors of student achievement. The results suggest that goal perspective could be an important influence on students' thought and action in physical education classes.

Teaching Lifetime Sports to at-Risk Students

Combining contract grading and criterion-referenced objectives can facilitate students' success—and when success in sports is achieved, lifetime participation is more likely.

Use of Contract Grading in a Required Pharmacy Communications Course

Use of Contract Grading in a Required Pharmacy Communications Course

An interdisciplinary gerontology elective for allied health students.

The planning, implementation, and evaluation of an interdisciplinary elective in gerontology for allied health students are presented. The contract grading mechanism used for evaluation encompassed learning activities in the classroom, clinic, and community areas. Students' comments and faculty recommendations are discussed.

Contract grading: an alternative for faculty and students.

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Development and implementation of a contract grading system.

Development and implementation of a contract grading system.

Contract Grading in the College Classroom

Individual classroom contracts for A, B or C level work, with flexible options for projects and an emphasis on the quality of the learning experience, indeed elicits the attainment of the agreed-upon goals.

Instructional alternatives in pediatric dentistry

In recent years several alternative instructional strategies have been recommended that were departures from traditional approaches. This paper describes several of these alternatives that have been adapted and applied to the curriculum in pediatric dentistry at West Virginia University. They include a systems approach to designing instruction, employment of single conceptual units of instruction, development of instructional objectives, use of audiovisual technology for conveying information, the opportunity for self-pacing, evaluation of students on a mastery model using a criterion-referenced system, and the opportunity for students to learn beyond mastery in programs of self-directed inquiry and contract grading. The methods used for implementing these strategies and the dynamics of their operation are discussed.

Contract Grading in the Classroom

status of salaries and level of student preparations, so they are dissatisfied with current methods of evaluation. In 1960 Robert F. Oliver discussed the Eternal and (Infernal) Problem of Grades,1 and many teachers in 1978 still con sider grading to be a problem. A survey of Volume 27 (1977) of the Education Index showed fifty articles ex amining the problem of assigning grades to students. In working toward a solution to the grading problem, the author has looked at past successes and mistakes, com paring how others assign grades with her own procedures. Traditional efforts to solve the eternal and infernal prob lem have clustered around two approaches to grading, norm-referenced and criterion-referenced evaluation. Working definitions of those two approaches are in order. Norm-referenced measurement evaluates a student's progress among classmates. When teachers approach the problem of grading armed with the bell-shaped curve and the various statistical methodologies designed to predict means and medians, deviations and, ultimately, grades, they are using norm-referenced strategies. Problems arise for accurate statistical analysis when class sizes are small. The author also observed an interest ing phenomenon in regard to competition. Students tended to compare rates and amounts of work and to drift toward a lower common denominator. Old habits die hard, so there would usually be one or two rate break ers who would encounter grumbles and groans from class mates when they pulled the top edge of the curve higher than those on the fringes had hoped. A similar phenomenon has been observed with pass/ fail systems: students tended to do the minimum amount of work required to avoid failure. Students also appeared

Contract grading in community dentistry

Dental educators are constantly searching for ways to improve the affective environment within dental education. To enhance dental student independence and motivation while reducing anxiety, the authors implemented a contract grading teaching and evaluation technique within their community dentistry courses. This paper reports on faculty and student experiences with the contract grading system. The findings suggest that style of teaching and evaluation may enhance a more personalized understanding of course material and reduce student anxiety during the learning process.

An individualized apparatus course for high school teachers

The paper briefly describes an individualized apparatus course for high school teachers. In addition to the usual purposes of such a course, this one endeavored to teach the design of high school experiments. This course included self-pacing, contract grading, and student determination of projects.