Score Normalization as a Fair Grading Practice. ERIC Digest.

This Digest outlines an appropriate way to handle score normalization in a fair and equitable manner. Using raw scores to calculate final grades may not entirely capture a student's true performance within a class. As variation in performance evaluation increases, so does the impact on the student's final ranking. Ideally, the distribution of individual student performance for all examinations should be equal, and fortunately the methodology for placing diverse assignments on an equitable scale is straightforward. Appropriate normalization requires nothing more than adjusting the examinations' means to be equal as well as their variances. A template for the normalization process is included, and an example derived from real data from a college biology course is given. (SLD)