Effects Of Grading System On Psychological Well-Being Among Adolescents

"Education is complex and nuanced. Grades are simple and arbitrary"

The present study attempts to investigate the phenomenon of grading system particularly in relation to psychological well-being among adolescents. Psychologically, the adolescence is the age when child no longer feels that he/she is below the levels of his/her elders but equals at least in rights (Piaget, 1972). The grading system is inherently subjective, punitive and reductive, which is also deeply entrenched. We don’t intend to propose abolishing or promoting the grading system. Whereas, it is a conversation worth having.

Without any differentiations of the grades, students can focus more on achieving their goals and learning the objectives, instead of worrying about being labeled as ‘’A,B,C or D’’ student.

Some scholars say that Grades don’t tell us how to help, how to cultivate talent, how to push the students beyond the bare minimum. Getting lesser marks greatly affects student’s motivation to learn.

While, grades offer clean lines of demarcation between types of students, types of future. They point us in a few clear directions. They tell us that a student needs help. They tell us student has a talent. They tell us student is just skating by. In simple words, grades are there, they just aren’t everything and the emphasis is on learning.

Grading system has been the part of our teaching culture for so long, that even our educators, students and other people never raised a question regarding its existence. Grading has come to be a extensive and widely accepted feature of our education system. The primary academic purpose of grades is to measure student achievement of learning in a particular curriculum (Munzur, 2014). Grading is most frequently used as a method of comparison: student vs. student, student vs. standard, effort vs. performance, past vs. present (Douglas & Smith, 2013; Grading, 2013).

1.It will minimize misidentification of students on the basis of marks.
2. It will eliminate unhealthy competition among high scorers
3. It will eliminate or reduce the societal pressure and will provide student more flexibility.
4. It will lead to a focus on a better learning ambience.

In grading system students are in the best position to evaluate theirown comprehension, growth and progress.they have the freedom tomake these evaluations honestly and objectively.