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Researchers find lower grades given to students with surnames that come later in alphabetical order (phys.org)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by Aatube@kbin.melroy.org to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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As graders go on grading, their comments become more frustrated and their good-will becomes much sloppier. At least that's the hypothesis to explain this. Researchers found the reverse effect on graders who sorted in reverse-alphabetical order.

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[–] lemmyng@lemmy.ca 34 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I used to be a teaching assistant at university, and never sorted by name. But based on my experience I don't think it's frustration that accounts for the disparity, it's that as you see more and more assignments you start getting a feel for common issues and are able to point them out more easily. I would always do two passes because of that to ensure that I normalized the weight of my marking.

[–] liv@lemmy.nz 12 points 5 months ago

I agree with this. It's a bit like the first 2 pancakes, you have to go back over the first half a dozen once you're in the zone.

I used to grade hard copies a lot, after I graded I'd put them in order from best to worst (numerical grades) and then do quick comparisons between an assignment and its neighbours in the pile. It's an easy way to "quality control".

As for the comments, that's a self-discipline issue. If you're giving, say, 4 positives and 4 negatives per assignment and have standard ways of phrasing, it shouldn't deteriorate.