Grading and assessment are two complementary concepts in student evaluation. They’re often used interchangeably but are two distinct concepts serving different purposes.
Understanding the difference between grading and assessment—and providing a mix of assessment methods—helps educators design better courses, improve student outcomes, and boost institutional reputation.
In this blog post, you’ll learn the nuances of both concepts, how to achieve a better balance between grading and assessment in your teaching practice, and—perhaps most importantly—where to find the time to do it.
Grading vs assessment: what’s the difference?
While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, grading and assessment are distinct practices in student evaluation.
- Grading is the process of assessing student work and assigning a letter or numerical grade to benchmark their performance, typically at the end of a unit of learning. It often focuses on the final product of learning—summarizing student achievement at a single point in time—rather than their learning journey.
- Assessment is about evaluating student progress through a learning unit and providing feedback to support their understanding, competence, and skills development. Assessment is ongoing, supporting students as they work toward learning outcomes, rather than simply recording a single result.
While grading is invaluable for educational institutions administratively—tracking student achievement for record-keeping, reporting, and progression purposes—it is a blunt tool for assessing and supporting student progress.
Grading can miss the nuances of individual growth and understanding and doesn’t deliver actionable feedback in time to improve outcomes—either for students or educators.
Assessment, on the other hand, is a holistic and more supportive approach to measuring student progress. It is both formative (ongoing throughout a course) and summative (at the end of a course).
As such, it provides a clearer picture of the understanding a student has gained and the progress they’ve made, as well as any areas needing improvement, to provide actionable feedback. This means it doesn’t just measure student attainment, it actively supports it.
Both grading and assessment offer unique benefits and have their place in student evaluation. The key is achieving the right balance, especially in an often performance-focused landscape that can prioritize grades-based evaluation.
At a glance: Key differences between grading and assessment
The role of grading within assessment
The goal of grading is to evaluate individual student performance against a set of criteria for a given unit or course. Grades may or may not be an accurate measure of student learning, depending on what is being evaluated.
For example:
- Attendance
- On-time assignment submission
- Formatting
- Participation
These may not reveal a lot about how much a student has learned, but they can offer indicators or signals for instructor intervention.
Grades alone, while useful as a standardized measurement, don’t provide enough personalized feedback for what a student does or does not know and what they need to do to further their learning.
According to Thomas Guskey, when grades are used alone, “even accurate, task-involving grades don’t lead to improved student learning.”
“Students get no direction for improvement from a letter, number, word, phrase, or symbol attached to evidence of their learning. Only when grades are paired with individualized comments that offer guidance and direction for improvement do they enhance achievement and foster learning progress.” (Guskey, 2019)
Why does the difference between grading and assessment matter?
Understanding the difference between grading and assessment lets educators enhance student learning and motivation, deliver a stronger curriculum, and reduce academic misconduct.
Impact on student motivation and learning
Most people reading this will have experienced the disappointment of getting a lower-than-expected grade and their self-esteem and motivation taking a hit.
While grading can be useful for taking a snapshot of performance, it can cause anxiety and disengagement for learners. Excessive grade-orientated evaluation can be particularly disheartening for students who may track below the class grade average, but who have made significant progress to get to where they are.
Conversely, assessment can boost motivation by emphasizing the process of learning, rather than just the product. Assessment uses constructive feedback to recognize effort and growth, and provide personalized feedback that helps students reach their potential.
And isn’t that why you entered education in the first place? Choosing assessment over grading helps educators fulfill their ambitions, too.
Implications for curriculum design
Recognizing the value of meaningful assessment —and the role of grading within it—can help teachers in higher and secondary education design better courses.
Understanding the positive impact of formative assessment on learning outcomes lets you build more assessment opportunities into your course. Look for opportunities to assess student learning throughout the unit—through project-based learning, informal quizzes, class discussions, portfolios, group work, presentations, etc.
The idea is to provide ways for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills, receive feedback, and develop them further. This not only improves outcomes through actionable feedback, but it also reduces the pressure and anxiety some students experience in a grade-orientated system. This improves fairness in assessment.
Fostering fairness in education
It isn’t just grade anxiety that can negatively impact student performance in exams. There are many reasons students may perform below expectations on standardized tests—including different learning styles, neurodiversity, and external pressures. Even physical wellness can have an impact.
Using formative assessment techniques levels the playing field for all students, providing the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge across a range of activities—and over different days
—rather than piling everything into one make-or-break moment. It helps ensure equality and equity in assessment.
Adapting to the impact of AI
Using assessment also helps educators overcome the risks of artificial intelligence and support academic integrity in the age of AI. While there is a place for AI in learning, there is also a risk that students rely on it to pass exams and assignments without truly understanding the subject.
Building formative assessment into your course lets you assess the process of learning—not just the final product. This reduces students’ ability to pass off AI-generated content as their own work because they have to demonstrate their critical thinking skills, in an age now characterized by AI paraphrasing.
Over time, and through a variety of assessment methods, you develop an understanding of an individual student’s knowledge and skills. If a graded assignment then doesn’t tally with this past performance history, it is easier to spot and intervene with targeted support.
Learn more about how AI will impact skills development in education.
Benefits of formative assessment in student evaluation
1. Add formative assessment into student evaluation
Consider adding some of these assessment strategies to raise the learning bar in your classroom.
- Topic quizzes: Short assessments to test student understanding after introducing a new topic, to help you understand student comprehension and refine your future teaching.
- Reflective journals: Personal writing on learning experiences and progress, to help you understand how students are finding their experience.
- Process-based assessment: Assessment that asks to ‘see the workings’ behind student work, so you can assess their thought processes and problem-solving skills.
- Portfolios: A collection of work that shows student progress over the course of the unit, to assess their growth and skill development.
- One-minute exit papers: A micro-writing exercise to glean what students have taken away from your lesson, to help you refine your approach.
- Observations: Watching students during group work and discussions to observe their thought processes and understanding in action.
Take a deeper dive with our blog post, The impact of formative assessment on student success.
2. Provide feedback, not just final grades
Try to separate feedback from final grades, to maintain student engagement and motivation.
- Review student drafts and provide feedback before assigning final grades.
- Use a rubric that includes skills and student growth, not just a letter grade.
- Have regular one-to-ones to discuss student work and feedback in person.
- Provide constructive feedback for students on how to improve, not just the need to improve.
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3. Focus on progress, not just product
Encourage students to focus on their progress, not just the product of their learning. With so much emphasis on the ability of grades to unlock future opportunities, it’s easy to see why learners get hung up on them. Try to reframe the learning experience for your students, showing how developing study skills and genuine knowledge will set them up for success better than simply attaining a grade by any means necessary.
- Reflect on, recognize, and reward student growth.
- Celebrate small wins throughout the unit, to foster a growth mindset.
- Encourage reflective practice to help students recognize their accomplishments.
4. Be aware of academic pressure
Academic pressure can be created by an excessively grade-focused assessment environment. This can lead to low self-esteem, anxiety, and academic misconduct. To help support students under academic pressure, consider the following.
- Use diverse assessment methods to help cater to different learning styles and preferences.
- Normalize struggle and make students feel less anxious about finding things difficult at first.
- Foster an environment where students feel comfortable talking about their challenges.
5. Explore assessment and grading tools
In a grade-focused, time-pressured learning system, many educators don’t currently have time for formative assessment and feedback. Learning technology—including AI-powered grading and assessment tools—relieves the manual burden of assessment, so you have more time for feeding back and supporting students. Here are some assessment tools that evaluate learning and how they can help.
- Automated grading: Automatically grade tests and quizzes —quickly, accurately, and at scale—to free your time for providing feedback and support.
- Visual recognition: Analyzes handwritten student submissions—such as complex STEM assignments—to check process, and product, and provide feedback.
- AI-powered rubrics: Automatically provide tailored feedback based on pre-defined criteria, covering both process and product, to help students understand strengths and improvement areas.
- AI analytics: Use data analytics to spot trends in individual and group performance to adjust your teaching approach, and make grading at scale more personal.
Learn more about educational technology and its impact on the learning landscape.
Final thoughts and next steps
Understanding the difference between grading and assessment is key to better curriculum design, improved learner outcomes, and a more student-focused education system overall. However, finding the time for formative assessment remains a challenge in an overstretched sector.
Fortunately, you can make more time for assessment and feedback by using technology-enabled tools that reduce the administrative challenge and help inform teaching practice, to support students in reaching their full potential.