Participation grades

Dear Willemijn,

I have been asked to teach a course for which one of the assessment components is ‘class participation’, and I am struggling a bit with this. I generally try to be very clear in stating what students are expected to do for which grade. For example: I distribute the grading rubric that I use to grade their final papers and they always know what type of questions to expect on exams. But I am reluctant to be very explicit regarding their participation. I don’t want to create an odd class dynamic in which students are merely asking questions to increase their participation grade. Do you have any advice for me? I expect my students to prepare for class by studying the text book, to ask questions and to participate in class discussions, to peer-review each other’s paper, and so on… but how do I convert this into a fair grade for participation, and what do I tell my students about this, in advance?

Thank you, C.

Dear C,

Grading for any aspect of a class, whether exams, presentations or papers can be difficult. However, grading participation seems to be particularly challenging, especially if you have never done it before.

Before I get into how you may want to go about grading participation, I think it is first important to emphasize why grading participation may be important. In the past few decades teachers have begun to recognize the benefits of grading participation and often make it a significant portion of a student’s final grade. While 10-20% is quite common nowadays, at Harvard Business School participation often accounts for 50% of the total course grade!
From my experience, grading participation is essential in many, if not most, fields of education. Classes are not just set up for students to learn substantive content. Rather, they are meant to act as learning environments where students acquire substantive knowledge and develop professional skills. Some skills we test through exams (ability to recall information), papers (ability to research and write) or presentations (ability to prepare and deliver a talk on a specific issue). Other skills, however, can only be assessed through the actions of the students throughout the entire course. These skills include, but are not limited to, actively and respectfully listening to peers and teachers; preparing for assignments; attending classes; engaging in critical thinking by learning how to ask questions; learning how to effectively make and present an impromptu argument; and generally engaging positively with their classmates.

From a pedagogical perspective, it makes sense to try to develop and assess a wide variety of skills. While some students may be better at recalling information and may receive higher exam grades, other students may be very good at reacting to discussions and presenting their ideas orally and may therefore receive higher grades in participation. In any case, it is crucial to inform the students why you are grading their participation. You can also let more shy or reluctant students contact you in advance so that you can work out a way for them to participate. One option is through more cold calling on these students who would otherwise not volunteer themselves (as a side note, one study strongly endorses the practice of cold calling as a tool to encourage classroom participation(1)).

Now, I want to address your main question: what is the best way to go about grading participation? First, it is important to remember that there are many ways to grade participation and very few professors adopt the exact same approach. You have to find what works best for you and your class, which may depend on class size or background of the students. Some professors like to keep track of each student who speaks in class. While this approach can encourage competition amongst students (for better or worse), it can be time consuming for the lecturer and can lead to less valuable interjections because it could quickly become about quantity over quality. What seems to work well is when professors stress the importance of the quality of the participation and provide a rubric in advance so that students understand how their grade, which will undoubtedly have some subjective elements, will be assessed in advance. There are many existing participation rubrics available online. One of my favorites from Villanova University in the US can be found here.
Admittedly, the process of grading participation is partly subjective but that is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as it is combined with clear criteria laid out in advance. A new trend in education to try to address too much subjectivity is to have the students assess their own participation grade based on the criteria you provide. Most likely, you will see that in the vast majority of cases you will come to the same grade.

Teaching a class is hard enough under any circumstances, but it is far more difficult when the class chooses not to engage with the material or interact with one another. Grading participation, if done correctly, can be a very effective tool to stimulate greater engagement and interaction while developing student skills at the same time!
Sincerely yours,
Willemijn

(1) Elise J. Dallimore, Julie H. Hertenstein and Marjorie B. Platt, Classroom participation and discussion effectiveness: student-generated strategies, 53 Communication Education 103-115 (2010).

Looking for more information on this topic? An interesting article in Faculty Focus about this topic you can find here.