NURS 600 Week 8 Reflection Paper 2 on Grading Example

Reflection Paper 2: What a Grade Should Mean, Reflections on Inflation, Partial Credit and Grading as Honest Communication

Introduction

In my Week 1 reflection, I described an instructor who passed me when I was not ready and about my own temptation to pass a struggling orientee. Eight weeks later, I find that the same question runs through every chapter we have read: what does a judgment of a student actually say, and to whom? This final reflection focuses on grading, the subject of the last chapter, and on an experience that brought the question into focus. Last semester I taught my first section of a health assessment course as an adjunct instructor, and grading the first set of papers taught me more about my own assumptions than any reading had.

The Experience

The first assignment was a focused assessment write-up, worth 10% of the course grade, with a rubric provided by the course coordinator. I read the first paper, which was thin and missed several required elements, and gave it 86%. I told myself that it was the first assignment, that the student was clearly trying, and that a low grade would discourage someone who was making an effort. By the twelfth paper, I noticed that nearly everyone was receiving a B or higher, and that I could no longer tell, from the grades, which students had actually done the assessment well. When the coordinator reviewed a sample of my grading, the coordinator asked a simple question: "If a preceptor saw these grades, what would they think these students can do?" I did not have a good answer.

What the Grading Chapter Clarified

Oermann and Gaberson (2017) describe grades as serving several purposes at once: they inform students about their achievement, inform others such as faculty and employers, motivate learning and support decisions about progression. A grade can serve those purposes only if it reflects what the student actually achieved. My generous grades failed every purpose. They told students their work was good when it was not, they would have told future faculty the same, and they removed the motivation to improve. The chapter also distinguishes norm-referenced grading, which compares students with one another, from criterion-referenced grading, which compares each student with fixed standards. My rubric was criterion-referenced, but I had applied it as if I were grading on a generous curve. A grade is a message, and a kind but inaccurate message is still a false one.

What Research Adds

I am not alone in this. Mapping a dozen studies of how nursing faculty grade, Del Prato and Bankert (2021) named institutional constraints, external standards, team teaching, lack of faculty confidence and student incivility as forces that push grades upward. Lack of confidence describes my first semester well. The review also pointed to remedies that I now see were within my reach: clear grading expectations, precise rubrics, attention to agreement between graders and faculty development.

The same pressures operate even more strongly in clinical settings, where the consequences are greater. When Adkins and Aucoin (2022) surveyed clinical faculty about passing students who did not meet standards, those who had done so were more influenced by the social discomfort of delivering bad news than those who had not. My generous paper grades and the clinical decisions that research describes come from the same place: a reluctance to disappoint a learner in front of me, which quietly shifts the cost onto the learner's future patients.

Research also gave me hope that grading systems themselves can help. Enslein et al. (2023) piloted a modified definitional grading system with 84 first-year prelicensure students in a didactic course, defining in advance what performance earned each grade and tying grades to mastery of content. Examination scores improved, though final course grades did not change significantly, and students described greater motivation and diligence alongside more stress and a clearer view of their weaknesses. The authors suggested that such a system can add meaning to grades. That idea, that a grade should mean something specific, is exactly what my first set of papers lacked.

I also had to reconsider my assumption that partial credit is a form of leniency. Norton and Yockey (2026) looked at what happened to the exam scores of students retaking a course when the faculty switched from all-or-nothing scoring to the partial-credit rules used on the newest licensure exam. Scores rose on every unit exam, but the repeating students did not consistently outscore the rest of the cohort, and the authors found no evidence that partial credit inflated grades. They concluded that partial credit measured performance more accurately. That finding helped me see that the problem is not giving credit for partial knowledge, which can be accurate, but giving credit for knowledge that is not there.

Looking Back Across the Course

Grading turned out to connect everything in this course. Validity matters because a grade is valid only if it reflects the outcomes the course claims to measure. Reliability matters because a grade that depends on which instructor reads the paper, or on whether it was read first or twelfth, is not a fair message. Clinical evaluation matters because the same honesty is required when the stakes are patients rather than points. At the start of the course I thought of evaluation as a set of techniques. I now see it as a responsibility to tell the truth about learning, carefully and kindly, to students and to everyone who will rely on our judgments.

A Christian Perspective

Ephesians 4:25 instructs believers to put away falsehood and "speak the truth with his neighbor" (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016). Grading is a form of speaking truth about another person's work, and it carries the same obligation. Truthful grading is not harsh grading. It can be paired with encouragement, specific feedback and a real opportunity to improve. But it cannot be replaced by flattery without harming the student, who loses an accurate picture of their learning, and the public, who will someday receive that student's care.

A Second Look at the Same Papers

After the coordinator's question, I regraded the twelve papers with the rubric beside me and a colleague's scores on three of them for comparison. Five grades dropped by more than ten points, two rose because I had underrated careful but plainly written work, and the spread of grades finally matched the spread of quality I could see. I returned the papers with a short note explaining that I had recalibrated and with specific comments on each rubric criterion. Several students came to office hours, and the conversations were more useful than any I had had when everyone was receiving a B. One student, whose grade fell from 86% to 71%, rewrote the assessment for practice and brought it to me two weeks later; the second version was strong. That experience convinced me that an honest grade, paired with a clear path to improve, motivates more than a generous one.

What I Will Do Differently

I am making four commitments for my first full year of teaching. First, before grading any assignment, I will grade two or three sample papers with the rubric and compare my scores with a colleague's, so that my standard is calibrated before I begin. Second, I will grade one rubric criterion across all papers at a time, so that later papers are not judged by a drifting standard. Third, I will write at least one specific comment per criterion explaining the score, so students understand what the grade means. Fourth, I will treat the first assignment of a course as formative where the course design allows it, giving full feedback with a low weight, rather than inflating a summative grade to protect students' confidence. When the coordinator next asks what my grades tell a preceptor, I want to be able to answer clearly.

Conclusion

My first set of papers taught me that generous grading feels kind but fails students, colleagues and patients. The grading chapter showed me what grades are for, and research showed me that my experience is common and that clear criteria, calibration and thoughtful grading systems can help. Looking back across this course, I see evaluation as truthful communication about learning, and grading as one of its most public forms.

References

Adkins, D. A., & Aucoin, J. W. (2022). Failure to fail: Factors affecting faculty decisions to pass underperforming nursing students in the clinical setting: A quantitative study. Nurse Education in Practice, 58, Article 103259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103259

Del Prato, D. M., & Bankert, E. G. (2021). Academic grade inflation in nursing education: A scoping review of the qualitative and quantitative literature. Nursing Education Perspectives, 42(1), 11-16. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000000723

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Enslein, T. W., Wiles, B., Acosta, K., & Hoch, A. (2023). Modified definitional grading: A pilot study. The Journal of Nursing Education, 62(4), 215-223. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20230208-01

Norton, L. M., & Yockey, J. (2026). Partial credit scoring: A helping hand or a crutch? The Journal of Nursing Education, 65(8), 502-504. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20260224-05

Oermann, M. H., & Gaberson, K. B. (2017). Evaluation and testing in nursing education (5th ed.). Springer Publishing Company.