Grading Glossary
A comprehensive reference of grading and assessment terminology. Written for professors, teachers, students, curriculum designers, and examination officers.
Academic integrity is the commitment to honest, ethical behavior in all academic work — encompassing policies, cultural norms, and assessment practices that prevent misconduct and foster genuine learning.
AI grading uses artificial intelligence to evaluate student work, providing scores and feedback by analyzing submissions against defined criteria—often with human oversight to ensure fairness.
Analytic rubrics score each criterion separately for detailed feedback, while holistic rubrics assign a single overall score based on the total impression of student work.
Assessment alignment is the degree to which assessments accurately measure the learning objectives they are intended to evaluate, ensuring coherence between what is taught and what is tested.
Assessment validity is the degree to which an assessment actually measures the construct it claims to measure, supported by evidence that the scores and interpretations are appropriate for their intended purpose.
Authentic assessment evaluates students through real-world tasks that require applying knowledge and skills in meaningful, complex contexts — moving beyond recall to demonstrate genuine understanding.
Backward design is a curriculum planning framework that begins with desired learning outcomes, then determines how to assess them, and finally plans instruction — reversing the traditional lesson-first approach.
Bloom's Taxonomy is a hierarchical framework of six cognitive levels — Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create — used to classify learning objectives and design assessments.
Competency-based education (CBE) is an instructional model in which students advance by demonstrating mastery of clearly defined competencies rather than by accumulating seat time or credit hours.
Constructive feedback is specific, actionable commentary on student work that identifies strengths, pinpoints areas for improvement, and provides clear guidance on how to close the gap between current and desired performance.
Criterion-referenced assessment measures student performance against predetermined standards and learning objectives rather than comparing students to each other.
Diagnostic assessment is an evaluation conducted before or at the beginning of instruction to identify students' existing knowledge, skills, misconceptions, and readiness gaps in order to inform teaching decisions.
Double marking is the practice of having two or more independent evaluators grade the same student work, while moderation is the systematic review process that ensures grading standards are applied consistently across assessors.
The ECTS grading system is a European framework that standardizes academic credits and grade scales to enable transparent credit transfer across universities.
Error analysis in student work is the systematic process of identifying, classifying, and interpreting student mistakes to understand learning gaps and guide targeted instruction.
Evidence-based grading is an assessment approach where every score is justified by specific, observable evidence drawn directly from student work rather than subjective impressions.
Formative assessment monitors student learning during instruction to provide ongoing feedback, while summative assessment evaluates achievement at the end of a learning period.
GPA (Grade Point Average) is a standardized numerical summary of a student's academic performance, calculated by averaging grade points earned across courses, often weighted by credit hours.
Grade descriptors are written statements that define the characteristics and qualities of student work at each performance level on a grading scale, providing a shared reference for what distinguishes one grade from another.
Grade inflation is the documented trend of rising average grades over time without a corresponding increase in student learning or achievement.
Grade weighting assigns different levels of importance to assessment components or rubric dimensions, so that higher-priority elements have a greater impact on the final grade.
Grading calibration is the process of aligning evaluators' scoring practices so that the same quality of work receives the same grade regardless of who assesses it.
Grading criteria are the specific standards and expectations used to evaluate student work, defining what quality looks like at each performance level.
Grading on a curve adjusts student grades based on the overall class distribution, ranking students relative to their peers rather than measuring against a fixed standard.
A grading scale is a standardized system that translates student performance into scores, letters, or levels to communicate achievement consistently.
Inter-rater reliability is the degree to which two or more independent evaluators assign the same scores to the same student work when applying the same assessment criteria.
Learning outcomes are specific, measurable statements describing what students should know, be able to do, or value by the end of a course, module, or program.
A marking scheme (also called a mark scheme or scoring guide) is a structured document that specifies how marks or grades should be awarded for each part of an assessment, ensuring consistent and transparent scoring.
Mastery learning is an instructional strategy in which students must demonstrate proficiency on a learning unit before advancing, using iterative cycles of instruction, assessment, feedback, and corrective teaching.
Norm-referenced grading ranks students relative to peers, while criterion-referenced grading measures each student against fixed performance standards — two fundamentally different assessment philosophies.
Peer assessment is a process in which students evaluate each other's work using defined criteria, developing critical thinking and feedback skills while reinforcing learning through evaluation.
Performance-based assessment requires students to demonstrate knowledge and skills by completing a complex, real-world task rather than selecting answers on a traditional test.
Plagiarism detection is the process of identifying unoriginal or improperly attributed content in student work using text-matching algorithms, AI-generated content detectors, and manual review.
Portfolio assessment is an evaluation method that collects multiple pieces of student work over time, providing a comprehensive and longitudinal view of learning, growth, and achievement.
A proficiency scale is a structured set of performance levels that describe increasing degrees of mastery, used to evaluate student competency rather than assign percentage scores.
Rubric design guidelines are evidence-based best practices for creating assessment rubrics that are clear, fair, aligned with learning outcomes, and practical to use.
Scaffolding in assessment is the deliberate provision of temporary, structured support that helps students engage with assessment tasks beyond their current independent ability, with the goal of gradually removing support as competence develops.
Self-assessment is the process by which students evaluate their own work against defined criteria, developing metacognitive awareness, self-regulation skills, and ownership of their learning.
Standards-based grading (SBG) is an assessment approach that measures student achievement against defined learning standards rather than accumulating points from assignments, homework, and participation.
A rubric is a scoring guide that defines criteria and performance levels used to evaluate student work consistently and transparently.
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