Volume 34, Issue 4, December 2011
William J. Rapaport
Pages 347-372
A Triage Theory of Grading
The Good, the Bad, and the Middling
This essay presents and defends a triage theory of grading: An item to be graded should get full credit if and only if it is clearly or substantially correct, minimal credit if and only if it is clearly or substantially incorrect, and partial credit if and only if it is neither of the above; no other (intermediate) grades should be given. Details on how to implement this are provided, and further issues in the philosophy of grading (reasons for and against grading, grading on a curve, and the subjectivity of grading) are discussed.