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Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online publication., Teacher-assigned grades provide important information that is used by universities and colleges to make admission decisions and by employers to make hiring decisions. Besides grades, the results of standardized achievement tests are frequently used for student selection and allocation. However, correlations between the two achievement measures are far from perfect, and researchers have argued that this discrepancy can be at least partially attributed to norm-referenced grading, which is based on the composition of performance in a class. In this study, we investigated the results of a curricular intensification reform, which introduced changes in the distribution of student performance by making enrollment in certain courses mandatory. We investigated whether the reform resulted in changes in the relationship between standardized achievement-test results and teacher-assigned grades. We analyzed cohort control design data from two large representative samples of students from two German states (Baden-Württemberg: N = 5,574; Thuringia: N = 2,202) before and after the reform. Results indicated that students who received a certain grade before the reform (e.g., a grade of A, B, C, or D) differed in their standardized test performance from students who received the same grade after the reform. Furthermore, in math, course-level-specific reform effects on the association between grades and standardized test performance were found to vary between groups of students receiving good and poor grades. Implications for educational policy and school reforms and suggestions for grading are discussed.

In this study, we investigated effects of the proportion of language minority students in classrooms on the development of students’ intrinsic motivation in language lessons and the mediating role of instructional climate (e.g., teacher support, focus on student interests). In addition, we explored the interaction between the proportion of language minority students and individual language background affecting students’ motivation. Analyses were based on data collected in 352 German 9th-grade classrooms across 2 measurement points in a multilevel framework. We found that students in classrooms with a higher proportion of language minority students were more intrinsically motivated to learn. However, we found no statistical evidence for the prediction that the compositional effect should be mediated by the instructional climate in the classroom. Cross-level interaction analyses revealed that only language minority students were increasingly motivated in classrooms with a higher proportion of language minority students. Our findings add to the growing evidence indicating that the nature and quality of the social environment are important determinants of school-related motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

The present study examined the extent to which the relationships between student self-reported math grades and different types of student variables (standardized math test scores, interest and effort in math, parental education) are predicted by classroom composition and teachers’ classroom management. Based on a representative sample of 31,038 8th-grade students from 1,470 classrooms, multilevel regression analyses revealed that grades were less strongly related to students’ test scores and more strongly related to students’ effort in classrooms with an unfavorable academic composition (i.e., low average test performance). Classroom management was found to moderate the association between academic classroom composition and the parental education–grade relationship, indicating a noticeable grade advantage of students with high parental education in classrooms with both an unfavorable academic composition and ineffective classroom management. Our findings highlight the relevance of classroom composition and classroom management to research on teachers’ grading and point toward possible ways to improve current grading practices.