1. Grade Expectations: When 100% Isn't Good Enough
- Author
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Ruppert, Bryan and Hoption, Colette
- Abstract
Embracing a positive-psychology approach to well-being, this study aimed at identifying how to maximize students' pleasure when receiving grades. Results from two experiments showed that students gained greater pleasure when receiving feedback in letter-grade format than in percentage scores. The results are consistent with social-psychological and sociocognitive research wherein coarser (as opposed to more granular) feedback is easier to process, provides superior self-affirming feedback, and, subsequently, garners greater pleasure. As the management discipline wrestles with being "too scientific," an impression aligned with precise percentage scores, use of a coarser feedback system may present a unique auxiliary benefit to the discipline. We invite future research on whether a system can be too coarse, on faculty's amenability to coarse grading systems, and on the concurrent use of multiple grading systems varying in coarseness.
- Published
- 2021
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