(Up)Grading: A (Re)Humanizing Assessment Process with a Focus on Feedback

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors, I find your paper ‘’Up)grading: A (Re)Humanizing Assessment Process with a Focus on Feedback’’ really interesting and valuable to be published. It is in many ways having high quality, and all the new, inspiring ways of assessments are welcome to higher education. Students’ capabilities to assess their own and others’ work are acknowledged in working life in future.

This paper is fresh and by having somewhat different theoretical frame/literature as compared to many self-assessment papers, it gives input to assessment discussion.  

I have some comments, and I point out the aspects that in my mind need clarifications in your paper. In general, well written paper with valuable message. Some more papers in literature focusing on 'feedback' could improve the discussion. Hope you find my comments constructive. I hope to see your paper soon published, BR xxxxxx

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Key words:

Add self-assessment.

Introduction

1)     ‘’ite the move to be more standards and student focused, grading remains something we do to students rather than with students…’’

This sounds curious; I recommend to use standard-based and student-focused/student-centered

2)     ‘’The focus on earning a grade rather than engaging in the learning process can be troublesome for teacher candidates as they navigate the com[1]plexities of the teaching and learning of mathematics.’’

Clarify more why teacher candidates should engage in the learning process. Do they need certain competences in their work, or do they carry the assessment culture with them etc.  

3)    ‘’content-specific grade?’’ What is that? Clarify.

4)    ‘’Sadly, there has not been a consistent nor united approach to standards-based assessment which causes difficulty in both research and practice (Knight & Cooper, 2019; Welsh, 2019).’’

Describe what you mean, and clarify what you want to say, and what are the references: are they  empirical studies, or on what is the message based.   It is a strong argument and needs clarification.

5)    ‘’ academic grades are presented separately from non-cognitive grades’’

This may be clear for some people, but for example I do not understand what are academic grades and what are non-cognitive grades. When you have international audience, there is need to clarify  

 

Theoretical frame

6)      ’Hirsch (2017) believes..’

I recommend to use some other verb than believe in case of scientific paper, maybe argues, suggests, etc.

Then open more Hirch’s work and statements because that is the one you really use in analyses also. And in the end of the paragraph, say something to conclude the theoretical part, the list is not a good way to finish.  

Methods

7)    ’.2.1. Elementary Mathematics Methods.’

Take the full stop out of the forehead

8)    ‘a folder system’ What is it? Online platform?

9)     ’the 5 Practices (Smith & Stein, 2018)’ Describe it shortly

10)   ‘’(1) regenerates talent, (2) expands possibilities, (3) particular, (4) authentic, (5) impact, and (6) refines group dynamics (Hirsch, 2017).’’

Describe more precise what kind of elements the text segments included when you identified it to belong to each category

Results

11)   ‘’6.1. Research Question 1 Student Perceptions of (Up)grading’’

delete ‘Research Question 1’, and similarly 6.2.

Discussion

12)   ‘’We know that with traditional grading students focus on the number and do not attend to the feed[1]back (e.g., Butler & Nisan, 1986).’’

Avoid such strong argument. I think we do not know that this is true for all cases for all students. In fact, research evidence shows it is not. But say for example ‘Previous research indicate…’

13)   In general, discussion needs more comparison with previous literature; compare your own results with previous research. Maybe some papers specifically exploring ‘feedback’ and ‘self-assessment’ could add insights. I do not know so well K12 literature,  but in higher education field David Boud has published much about feedback, self-assessment, etc. , and there is a e.g. a book called Evaluative judgement. Also Nieminen Juuso has published about mathematics and self-assessment. You could find some interesting papers.   

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your intentional feedback. We believe that this feedback has made our paper stronger. Because of the specific nature of your feedback, we went down your list and addressed each one. We found the recomendation of Boud’s and Juuso’s research to be especially helpful. We attached our revision sheet for your reference. Changes in the manuscript are in red for ease of noting the revisions. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper. I am very interested in alternative methods of assessment, and it was a pleasure to read this paper. 

My main concerns are with the methodology. Here are a few things to consider:

- First, and probably most important, did you obtain IRB approval for this study? If so, please state this in your methods section, along with the approval number. Following up on that, how did you consent your student participants?

- When you discuss the data analysis portion, you make no mention of how you ensured the reliability of your coding method (e.g., using interrater reliability). I think this can be problematic in convincing readers of the validity and reliability of the research you've done.

- It's important to clarify whether you used open-ended surveys from the students. If this is the case, please state it explicitly. If not, then it is not appropriate to use qualitative methods to assess non-open ended surveys. This clarity is essential for ensuring the validity of your findings and the appropriateness of your research method.

- What did the anecdotal reflections and mid-semester check-ins by the MTEs look like? Can you please provide a little more description? Also, did the students also have reflections during the semester? This was not clear to me.  

- I think this paper will benefit from having a limitations section. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I think the writing was fine. 

Author Response

Thank you for your intentional feedback. This feedback has made our paper stronger. We have attached your feedback with a note that we addressed each concern. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I appreciate the authors' edits and I believe these have strengthened the paper. I still do not see the limitations section (I only see pages 1 -14 and no page 18). If this is in the appendix or additional information, I would highly recommend it be moved into the main manuscript. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of English is fine. 

Author Response

Thank you for your prompt review. We have added a subheading to highlight our Limitations paragraph. We also did another read-thru and editing of the paper.