Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 999–1011
Ethics in classroom assessment practices: Issues and attitudes
Susan K. Greena,, Robert L. Johnsonb, Do-Hong Kimc, Nakia S. Popea
aWinthrop University, Rock Hill, SC 29733, USA
bUniversity of South Carolina, SC, USA
cUniversity of North Carolina at Charlotte
Received 24 January 2006; received in revised form 5 April 2006; accepted 10 April 2006
Abstract
Student evaluations should ‘‘be ethical, fair, useful, feasible, and accurate’’ [JCSEE (2003). The student evaluation
standards. Arlen Gullickson, Chair. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin]. This study focuses on defining ethical behavior and
examining educators’ ethical judgments in relation to assessment. It describes the results from a web-based survey of
educators in which they read a brief scenario and indicated whether the student evaluation practice in the depiction was
ethical or unethical. Results showed strong agreement among the educators on fewer than half of the scenarios presented in
this study. These findings suggest that assessment is currently an educational realm without professional consensus.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Evaluation methods; Ethics; Classroom assessment
1. Introduction
The importance of the evaluation of students is
evidenced in the recent publication of The Student
Evaluation Standards (The Joint Committee on
Standards for Educational Evaluation [JCSEE,
2003]). The standards are offered as ‘‘principles
that should guide and govern student evaluations’’
(JCSEE, p. xx) and ‘‘require that student evaluations be ethical, fair, useful, feasible, and accurate’’
(JCSEE, p. 3).
The need for guidelines on ethical assessment
practices is evident in frequent incidents taken from
newspaper headlines. In one incident, a biology
teacher in the Midwest USA decided to assign
students failing grades for the science course after
the students were caught cheating on a class project.
The decision split the community and the teacher
resigned (Carroll, 2002). In another instance, the
state law enforcement division in a southern USA
community investigated a teacher after she used in
her classroom some commercially available test
preparation materials that are designed to simulate
the type of items and subject matter in the state test.
Finally, the president of a southeastern USA college
recently fired two professors for their refusal to
adhere to a policy awarding freshman 60% of their
grade based on effort (Click, 2004). The dismissal of
the professors brought unfavorable national attention to the administrator’s misguided policy on
effort and grades.
Guidelines for assessment practices include those
offered in The Student Evaluation Standards
(JCSEE, 2003), the Standards for Teacher Competence in the Educational Assessment of Students
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0742-051X/$ – see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tate.2006.04.042
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: greens@winthrop.edu (S.K. Green).
(American Federation of Teachers, National Council on Measurement in Education, & National
Education Association, 1990), the Standards for
Educational and Psychological Testing (American
Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on
Measurement in Education, 1999), and the Code
of Ethical Conduct and Statement of Commitment
of the National Association for the Education of
Young Children (2005). As Gipps (1994) points out,
however, guidelines are often ‘‘general and almost
superficial’’ (p. 144). They provide rules without an
overarching ethical framework that can provide
support and guidance for exercising judgment in
specific situations.
Several authors have provided ethical guidelines
related to preparation for high stakes testing (e.g.,
Haladyna, Nolen, & Haas, 1991; Mehrens &
Kaminski, 1989; Popham, 1991). In addition,
several studies have examined in-service and preservice teacher attitudes regarding the appropriateness of standardized test preparation strategies (e.g.,
Bright, 1992; Kher-Durlabhju & Lacina-Gifford,
1992; Moore, 1993). However, ethical standards
related to testing are not consistently defined or
agreed upon (Thorndike, Cunnningham, Thorndike, & Hagen, 1991; and see Kilian [1992] in
response to Popham [1991]). Gipps and Murphy
(1994) go a step farther and suggest that more
attention should be focused instead on wider equity
issues such as equality of access to instruction. The
lack of agreement highlights the need for an
overarching ethical framework from which to
develop the capacity to make judgments about
ethical assessment practices.
Other authors have discussed the importance of
ethics in assessment (e.g., Baumgart, 1996; Gipps,
1994; Popham, 2000). For example, Baumgart
(1996) applauds the development of ethical codes
related to assessment. He argues that education,
reflection, and self-regulation related to ethics are
more likely with easy access to such codes of ethics,
but does not suggest principles that might govern
such activities. Gipps (1994) points out that the
powerful impact of assessment necessitates an
ethical framework on which to draw, but limits
the discussion to specific issues such as consequential validity (Messick, 1993), equity, and test
preparation. Popham (2000) does offer an ethical
guideline—‘‘when teachers engage in test preparation practices which, if brought to the public’s
attention, would discredit the education profession,
such practices may be considered professionally
unethical (p. 82).’’ While Popham does offer this
guideline, he neglects to place it within a larger
ethical framework. Why, for example, does the
ethicality of test preparation depend on what other
people think? Making ethical assessment practices
contingent on whether or not one may get caught
results in a simplistic utilitarian calculus, which is
not, in and of itself, ethical.
Some textbooks do briefly discuss ethical principles that can guide ethical judgments related to
assessment. For example, Airasian (2005) suggests
that the ethical standards for assessment refer to
‘‘some aspect of a teacher’s fairness in dealing with
his or her pupils (p. 20).’’ Similarly, Taylor and
Nolen (2005) point out that because poor assessment can significantly affect students, ‘‘the ethical
responsibility of educators is ‘first, Do No Harm’
(p. 7).’’ Payne (2003) sums up ethical codes by
stating that educators should ‘‘Assess As Ye Would
Be Assessed.’’ These principles are not elaborated as
tools to assist educators in making day-to-day
judgments, however. To summarize, the discussion
in the literature often describes what various
authors consider ethical practices, but these discussions suffer from a lack of explicit identification of
the underlying ethical assumptions related to making decisions about behavior in the realm of
assessment.
The present authors define ethical behavior as
acting based on one’s judgment of an obligation—a
duty by virtue of a relationship with a person,
persons, or social institution (Kant, 1785; Rawls,
1971). What makes a behavior ethical or unethical is
whether that behavior is consistent with or contradictory to one’s obligations. Given these conditions,
there is always a gap between principles and
behavior requiring judgment in a specific situation
(Hostetler, 1997; Kant, 1790; Strike & Soltis, 1998),
so uniform agreement on standards in every case
would not be expected. Educators must be given the
space, autonomy, and support to learn to use their
judgment. This approach thus shows an important
distinction between ethics and best practices in
teaching and assessment. Ethics is addressed in
terms of obligations based on relationships so there
is an affective component as well as a rational one
(Noddings, 1984; Nussbaum, 1986, 1990). More
specifically, obligations are felt, but best practices
are merely followed.
Other literature suggests that teachers may not
always be well equipped to make ethical judgments
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related to assessment. Teachers’ knowledge base
about guidelines or ethical codes may be uncertain
because they often lack formal assessment training
or their training has become dated (Impara, Plake,
& Fager, 1993; Plake & Impara, 1997; Stiggins,
1999). Conflicting norms related to teaching (e.g.,
institutional norms vs. ethical interpersonal norms)
often place teachers in ethical dilemmas (Colnerud,
1997). But, teachers’ ability to apply guidelines to a
specific context has received limited attention in the
literature. One exception is the Plake and Impara
(1997) study in which five items in a test of teacher
assessment competence measured teachers’ ability
to answer items related to ethical issues in student
evaluation. These items, however, all focused on
issues relating to standardized tests.
Another element that has not been thoroughly
addressed in the literature is the application of
ethical principles to ongoing classroom assessment.
In the classroom, teachers are required to weigh
their obligations and make judgments every day
related to assessment. Comprehensive principles
related specifically to classroom evaluation have
not been widely promulgated, although several
assessment texts do discuss ethical codes and
practices related to classroom assessment (e.g.,
Airasian, 2005; Taylor & Nolen, 2005).
As a starting point for generating principles
widely applicable to the various types of assessment
that occur in classrooms, the present authors
examined professional standards, articles addressing
ethical principles in education, papers related to
ethical standardized test preparation practices, and
assessment texts. Two general guiding principles
seem to capture the essence of the ethical concerns
in these documents.
The first is to Do No Harm (Taylor & Nolen,
2005). This is a basic broad ethical principle that
people in general use to govern their lives by virtue
of their being human. It is a variant of ethical
principles handed down through the centuries, like
the Golden Rule (or Assess as Ye Would Be
Assessed [Payne, 2003]). (This is a core ethical
principle in other professions such as medicine
[Jonsen, Siegler, & Winslade, 1998; Munson, 2000].)
The judgment involved comes in defining what
harm is, or choosing between different harms in the
relationship between teacher and student. This
principle stems from the basic premise that ethical
guidelines must protect the rights of individuals
affected by an evaluation. This premise is congruent
with the proprietary standards in the JCSEE (2003)
Student Evaluation Standards (p. 7). Several of those
standards address aspects of this fundamental
assumption: to serve the needs of students, to treat
students with respect, and to incorporate basic
principles of fairness (Airasian, 2005). Popham’s
(1991) point that educators serve in loco parentis
also lends support to the principle that assessment
should protect students and Do No Harm to them.
In the present conceptualization, the guiding
principle Do No Harm was chosen to make the
implications more concrete, focusing on the harm
that can be done when the basic premise is not
followed. Fairness (or protection of student rights)
is a general principle that no one contests in the
abstract. However, thinking about causing harm
focuses the discussion at the level of the implications
of everyday practice. Educators must be well versed
in the potential impact of the practices they use
because their assessment and evaluation may have a
variety of unintended consequences for their students. For example, a teacher who uses surprise
items on a test that did not appear on the study
guide may do harm by breaking the implicit bond of
trust between teacher and student. A teacher who
passes out tests from highest grade to lowest may do
harm by breaching confidentiality. Such actions
imply lack of respect for student rights and needs.
The second general guiding principle for classroom assessment is to Avoid Score Pollution. This is
a specific iteration of the Do No Harm principle that
applies to assessment. This principle is adapted
from guidelines suggested by both Popham (1991)
and Haladyna et al. (1991) for ethical standardized
test preparation. Both authors suggest that any
practice that improves test performance without
concurrently increasing actual mastery of the
content tested produces score pollution. That is,
the score on the test does not represent actual
student achievement in the content area and is
‘‘polluted’’ by factors unrelated to academic attainment. If scores do not reflect mastery then harm has
been done. This situation is akin to lying. For
example, practicing beforehand with actual test
content would produce score pollution. In essence,
this is a validity issue. Test scores no longer measure
generalized mastery but simply ability to memorize
specific test items.
The present authors believe this principle can be
extended to other elements of classroom assessment.
Any official assessment, including grades, should
reflect only the extent to which students have
mastered the goals of instruction (e.g., Brookhart,
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S.K. Green et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 999–1011 1001
2004; Smith, Smith, & DeLisi, 2001). When
educators modify grades or scores because of
student effort, late work, or behavior problems,
for example, the scores do not accurately communicate the level of mastery. Similarly, many teachers
do not use a blind grading system and may
unconsciously prefer certain students. These educators may unintentionally engage in score pollution
by giving less favored students lower grades than
they deserve. Thus classroom grades are ‘‘polluted’’
by these other factors. Students, their families, and
other stakeholders in the education system need
valid information regarding academic achievement.
1.1. Conceptual framework and research questions
The present study draws on both theoretical and
empirical foundations in the areas of ethics and
assessment. From the ethics literature derives the
assumption that ethical behavior is defined as acting
based on one’s judgment of an obligation. In
addition, the notion of an ever-present gap between
principles and ethical behavior in specific circumstances requires a focus on specific judgments as
well as on general principles such as Do No Harm.
From the assessment literature comes the assumption that assessment of student achievement should
accurately reflect mastery of content, should be
administered fairly, and should be treated confidentially. Resulting empirical studies in this tradition
have focused primarily on teachers’ knowledge base
about practices related to standardized testing. In
the present study, we wished to explore the
intersection of these two bodies of literature by
examining specific circumstances requiring ethical
judgments about a variety of classroom assessment
practices.
The guiding research question was, ‘‘What is the
degree of agreement among educators about specific
ethical questions related to assessment issues that
arise in the classroom?’’ Evidence of strong agreement would suggest that educators use similar
guidelines and methods of judgment in enacting
assessment in the classroom. Evidence of weak
agreement would suggest that further exploration
and dialogue related to ethical principles and their
application in specific circumstances would be
useful. In particular, clarification of how the process
between principle and judgment takes place would
be needed. Thus, the present study was designed to
survey educators by presenting a variety of classroom assessment scenarios to determine their ethical
position on a range of assessment practices.
2. Method
2.1. Participants
The participant pool for this study consisted of
educators in the graduate and undergraduate
programs at two major southern USA universities.
All of these individuals were enrolled in a classroom
assessment course or a course with a classroom
assessment component. Participants completed the
survey prior to the class session that addresses ethics
in classroom assessment. The pool included preservice teachers, in-service teachers, and administrators. This study focuses on the responses of
pre-service and in-service teachers.
2.2. Instrument
The current study organizes the guidelines for
ethical student evaluation into a framework that
addresses both classroom assessment and standardized testing. Thus, scenarios for items on both
classroom assessment and classroom issues related
to standardized testing were developed using
resources from the assessment literature (e.g., The
Student Evaluation Standards [JCSEE, 2003] and
The Principles for Fair Student Assessment Practices
for Education in Canada [Joint Advisory Committee,
1993]) and the authors’ experiences as well as
anecdotes gathered from graduate students over
several semesters.
The researchers used a web-based survey to
present a series of scenarios in which an educator
is engaging in a student evaluation practice that
may or may not be ethical. For example, one
scenario states that ‘‘A high school social studies
teacher bases students’ final semester grade on 2
multiple choice tests.’’ In completing the survey
item, the educator selects the Ethical or Unethical
option.
2.3. Procedure
The first draft of the survey consisted of 36
scenarios and 6 questions about demographic
information. A pilot survey was conducted with 74
participants in the spring of 2004. Participants were
given oral instructions during class on how to access
the survey web site and complete the web-based
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survey. The results of the pilot survey were reviewed
and six items that appeared confusing were modified
or replaced.
The final 36-item survey was administered in the
summer and fall of 2004. Of 169 responses, 114 were
pre-service and 55 were in-service teachers.
3. Results
3.1. Analyzing agreement and disagreement
Seven categories were created based on the topics
of the scenarios: Standardized Test Preparation,
Standardized Test Administration, Multiple Assessment Opportunities, Communication about Grading, Grading Practices, Bias, and Confidentiality.
For the total group of 169 respondents, the
categories with highest agreement on individual
items among respondents were calculated by determining the percentage of items in that category on
which at least 80% of respondents agreed. For
example, 90% of educators indicated it is ethical to
for a teacher to spend a class period to train his
students in test-taking skills (e.g., not spending too
much time on one problem, eliminating impossible
answers, guessing) prior to testing. Similarly, 96%
of educators indicated it was unethical when a
teacher provides a hint about a child’s incorrect
answer during the administration of a standardized
test. In both instances, educators were in agreement
in their views about whether a practice was ethical
or unethical. We selected the 80% level because it
indicates considerable agreement among respondents. In addition, few items were selected by 90%
of respondents as being ethical or unethical; so little
would be gained by such an analysis.
We also examined the areas of disagreement.
When 50% of teachers indicate a practice is ethical
and 50% label the practice unethical, then the split
(i.e., disagreement) can be no greater. For example,
high disagreement occurs when 57% of teachers
indicate that the weighting of homework heavily in
determining report card grades is ethical, and 43%
indicate such a practice is unethical. Teachers, thus,
are split on this issue. Items with percentages from
50% to 70% were identified as displaying substantial disagreement among teachers.
3.2. Analysis within content categories
The level of agreement for the individual items in
Standardized Test Preparation ranged from 53% to
90% (see Table 1). Items that fell within 80%
agreement included a teacher spending time training
students in test-taking skills (Item 5), a teacher
administering a parallel form of a norm-referenced
state test (Item 6), and a teacher using a commercially
available publication with the same format and skills
as a state test (Item 12). One item reflected high levels
of disagreement (falling within the 50–70% range):
‘‘Based on his review of the district’s mathematics
frameworks, a teacher creates learning activities with
specific math problems that are included in the annual
achievement test (Item 4).’’
In the category Test Administration, as shown in
Table 2, almost all (96%) of the in-service and preservice teachers rated as unethical a teacher drawing
a student’s attention during testing to a problem
that the child had missed (Item 7). The other item in
this category, in which a teacher corrects a student
who is marking items out of sequence, fell into the
high disagreement range, with 69% indicating that
the practice is ethical and 31% indicating unethical.
The rates of agreement for Multiple Assessment
Opportunities (see Table 3) ranged from 78%
to 99%. Most recognized as ethical the use of
many forms of assessment in the classroom (99%,
Item 21). A large percentage rated as unethical the
questionable practice of relying on one form of
assessment in a classroom (85%, Item 25). Reliance
on too few assessments for determining grades
(78%, Item 10) nearly reached the 80% agreement
level.
As seen in Table 4, for the category of Communication about Grading, 98% of in-service and preservice teachers rated as ethical the appropriateness
of providing students with a written policy
about the calculation of grades (Item 31), informing students about the materials that are
important in preparing for a test (Item 27), and
stating the manner in which a task will be graded
when it is assigned (Item 1). The other item in this
category, using surprise items not on the study
guide, fell into the high disagreement range, with
34% of both groups rating it as ethical and 66% as
unethical.
As shown in Table 5, in-service and pre-service
teachers’ views about Grading Practices varied
widely. Levels of agreement ranged from 57% to
86%. Items where over 80% agreement was reached
included rating as ethical a teacher basing grades for
a group project on the group product plus a heavily
weighted individual component (Item 3, 83%),
rating as unethical a teacher lowering report card
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S.K. Green et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 999–1011 1003
grades for disruptive behavior (Item 35, 85%),
rating as ethical a teacher considering student effort
when determining grades (Item 30, 85%), and rating
as ethical lowering grades for late work (Item 24,
86%).
Grading Practices items with a high level of
disagreement included a physical education teacher
giving a student a zero as a homework grade for not
returning a form requiring a parent’s signature
(Item 8, 57% unethical), deducting more points on a
test for a wrong answer than leaving an item blank
(Item 14, 69% unethical), changing a grade from a
B+ to an A because a student had mastered course
objectives but not completed all homework assignments (Item 13, 63% unethical), and weighting
homework heavily in determining report card
grades (Item 32, 57% ethical).
Agreement for Bias Issues (Table 6) ranged from
52% to 94%. Most respondents (94%) agreed to the
ethicality of a teacher allowing a student with a
learning disability to use accommodations in testing
(Item 34). They also agreed that it was unethical to
restrict the number of As in a class based on a belief
that student work is rarely perfect (Item 22, 80%
agreement).
Two Bias items fell in the strong disagreement
range in this category. First, 59% of all respondents
rated as unethical the practice of only addressing
student strengths in narrative report cards (Item 36).
Second, 52% rated as unethical the practice of
grading essay tests with the knowledge of student
identities (Item 26).
In the Confidentiality scenarios, agreement was
high, ranging between 76% and 98% (see Table 7).
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Table 1
Percentage of pre-service and in-service teachers indicating the ethicality of assessment practices in standardized test preparation
Item # Scenarios for standardized test preparation Respondents’
answers
Total
(N ¼ 169),
%
Pre-service
teachers
(N ¼ 114), %
In-service
teachers
(N ¼ 55), %
5 A teacher spends a class period to train his
students in test-taking skills (e.g., not spending
too much time on one problem, eliminating
impossible answers, guessing).
Ethical 89.9 89.5 90.9
Unethical 10.1 10.5 9.1
12 A teacher uses scoring high on the MAT, a
commercially available publication with the
same format and skills as the Metropolitan
Achievement Test (but not the same items), in
preparation for state testing.
Ethical 88.8 86.6 89.1
Unethical 11.2 11.4 10.9
6 A teacher administers a parallel form of a
norm-referenced achievement test to her
students in preparation for the state testing.
The parallel form is another version of the
state test that assesses the same content;
however, the items on the parallel form are not
the same ones as on the state form of the
achievement test.
Ethical 80.5 79.8 81.8
Unethical 19.5 20.2 18.2
2 A teacher adds vocabulary words from a
standardized, norm-referenced verbal aptitude
test to classroom vocabulary tests.
Ethical 74.0 81.6 58.2
Unethical 26.0 18.4 41.8
23 An elementary teacher quizzes students in the
lunch line about the number of pints in a quart
because students had missed the item on
previous administrations of the state
standardized test.
Ethical 70.4 68.4 74.5
Unethical 29.6 31.6 25.5
4 Based on his review of the district’s
mathematics frameworks, a teacher creates
learning activities with specific math problems
that are included in the annual achievement
test.
Ethical 53.3 63.2 32.7
Unethical 46.7 36.8 67.3
1004 S.K. Green et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 999–1011
Most of the in-service and pre-service teachers rated
as unethical a teacher disclosing to parents the
achievement scores of a child other than their own
(98%, Item 16), and identifying individual students’
rankings on exams to others (93%, Item 20).
3.3. Comparisons between in-service and pre-service
teachers
We conducted chi-square analyses to compare the
responses of in-service teachers and pre-service
teachers. With 36 items for comparisons, the Type
I error would be inflated. Thus, we applied the
Bonferroni correction to our test-wise alpha of .05
to reduce our Type I, or false positive, error rate to
.0014 (i.e., 0.05C36 comparisons). Only on 1 of the
36 items, did in-service teachers and pre-service
teachers provide ratings that were significantly
different. For item 4 (i.e., a teacher creates learning
activities with specific math problems that are
included in the annual achievement test), pre-service
teachers were significantly more likely to rate the
practice as ethical than were in-service teachers
(w2 ¼ 13.80, df ¼ 1, po0:001). Thus, with one
exception, teaching experience did not account for
differences in labeling an assessment practice as
ethical or unethical.
3.4. Analysis across content categories
To examine patterns in agreements and disagreements, we tabulated the number of items in each
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Table 2
Percentage of pre-service and in-service teachers indicating the ethicality of assessment practices in standardized test administration
Item # Scenarios for standardized test administration Respondents’
answers
Total
(N ¼ 169), %
Pre-service
teachers
(N ¼ 114), %
In-service
teachers
(N ¼ 55), %
17 While administering a standardized test, a
teacher notices that a child has skipped a
problem and is now recording all his answers out
of sequence on the answer form. The teacher
stops at the child’s desk and shows the student
where to record the answer he is working on and
instructs him to put the answer to each question
with the same number on the answer sheet.
Ethical 69.2 68.4 70.9
Unethical 30.8 31.6 29.1
7 While administering a standardized test, a
teacher notices that a child has missed a problem
that the student obviously knows. The teacher
stands by the child’s desk, taps her finger by the
incorrect problem, shakes her head, and walks
on to the next desk.
Ethical 3.6 3.5 3.6
Unethical 96.4 96.5 96.4
Table 3
Percentage of pre-service and in-service teachers indicating the ethicality of assessment practices in multiple assessment opportunities
Item # Scenarios for multiple assessment opportunities Respondents’
answers
Total
(N ¼ 169), %
Pre-service
teachers
(N ¼ 114), %
In-service
teachers
(N ¼ 55), %
21 A teacher assesses student knowledge by using
many types of assessments: multiple-choice tests,
essays, projects, portfolios.
Ethical 99.4 99.1 100
Unethical 0.6 0.89 0
10 A high school social studies teacher bases
students’ final semester grade on 2 multiplechoice tests.
Ethical 21.9 22.8 20
Unethical 78.1 77.2 80
25 A second-grade teacher uses observations as the
sole method to assess what students have
learned.
Ethical 15.4 14.9 16.4
Unethical 84.6 85.1 83.6
S.K. Green et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 999–1011 1005
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Table 4
Percentage of pre-service and in-service teachers indicating the ethicality of assessment practices in communication about grading
Item # Scenarios about communication about grading Respondents’
answers
Total
(N ¼ 169), %
Pre-service
teachers
(N ¼ 114), %
In-service
teachers
(N ¼ 55), %
1 A teacher states how she will grade a task when
she assigns it.
Ethical 98.2 97.4 100
Unethical 1.8 2.6 0
27 A teacher tells students what materials are
important to learn in preparing for a class test.
Ethical 98.2 97.4 100
Unethical 1.8 2.6 0
31 A middle school principal directs teachers to
give students a written policy that explains how
report card grades are calculated in their classes.
Ethical 97.6 98.2 96.4
Unethical 2.4 1.8 3.6
29 For the final exam, a teacher always uses a few
surprise items about topics that were not on the
study guide.
Ethical 33.7 35.1 30.9
Unethical 66.3 64.9 69.1
Note: All items in this table were classified as ‘‘Do No Harm’’.
Table 5
Percentage of pre-service and in-service teachers indicating the ethicality of assessment practices in grading practices
Item # Scenarios about grading practices Respondents’
answers
Total
(N ¼ 169), %
Pre-service
teachers
(N ¼ 114), %
In-service
teachers
(N ¼ 55), %
24 A teacher lowers grades for late work by one
letter grade for each day.
Ethical 85.8 86.8 83.6
Unethical 14.2 13.2 16.4
30 A teacher considers student effort when
determining grades.
Ethical 85.2 88.6 78.2
Unethical 14.8 11.4 21.8
3 For a group project, a teacher bases each
student’s grade on the group’s product and a
heavily weighted individual component.
Ethical 83.4 83.3 83.6
Unethical 16.6 16.7 16.4
33 A teacher considers a student’s growth in
assigning grades.
Ethical 79.3 78.9 80.0
Unethical 20.7 21.1 20.0
15 To encourage lively discussion in English III, a
teacher counts class participation as 30% of the
final grade.
Ethical 74.6 72.8 78.2
Unethical 25.4 27.2 21.8
32 A teacher weights homework heavily in
determining report card grades.
Ethical 57.4 57.9 56.4
Unethical 42.6 42.1 43.6
8 A physical education teacher gives a student a
zero as a homework grade for not returning a
form requiring a parent’s signature.
Ethical 42.6 42.1 43.6
Unethical 57.4 57.9 56.4
13 As a teacher finalizes grades, she changes one
student’s course grade from a B+ to an A
because tests and papers showed the student had
mastered the course objectives even though he
had not completed some of his homework
assignments.
Ethical 37.3 33.3 45.5
Unethical 62.7 66.7 54.5
14 To minimize guessing, a teacher announces she
will deduct more points for a wrong answer than
for leaving the answer blank.
Ethical 30.8 29.8 32.7
Unethical 69.2 70.2 67.3
1006 S.K. Green et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 999–1011
category that displayed high agreement (i.e., 80% or
higher) and those that displayed high disagreement
(i.e., 50–70%). As shown in Table 8, the categories
with high agreement on individual items among
respondents included Communication about Grading
(with 3 of the 4 items reaching at least 80%
agreement), Confidentiality (2 of the 3 items), and
Multiple Assessment Opportunities (also 2 of 3). The
category of Grading Practices had the lowest
agreement among responses with only 4 of the 13
items reaching 80% agreement), followed by Bias,
with 2 of the 5 items reaching 80% agreement.
Overall, 17 of the 36 items fell into the high
agreement range (80–100% agreement).
In examining the seven content categories, we
also noted items with high levels of disagreement.
Table 8 shows that 5 of the 7 categories contained
items with high levels of disagreement, Standardized
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Table 5 (continued )
Item # Scenarios about grading practices Respondents’
answers
Total
(N ¼ 169), %
Pre-service
teachers
(N ¼ 114), %
In-service
teachers
(N ¼ 55), %
19 A middle school history teacher offers extra
credit opportunities to all his classes except the
advanced class.
Ethical 26.0 21.9 34.5
Unethical 74.0 78.1 65.5
28 A teacher uses student peer ratings as 40% of the
grade on an oral report.
Ethical 25.4 21.1 34.5
Unethical 74.6 78.9 65.6
11 An accounting teacher gives a student an F for
the course because the student missed the final
exam.
Ethical 24.9 24.6 25.5
Unethical 75.1 75.4 74.5
35 A teacher lowers report card grades for
disruptive behavior.
Ethical 15.4 18.4 9.1
Unethical 84.6 81.6 90.9
Table 6
Percentage of pre-service and in-service teachers indicating the ethicality of assessment practices items in bias
Item # Scenarios about bias Respondents’
answers
Total
(N ¼ 169), %
Pre-service
teachers
(N ¼ 114), %
In-service
teachers
(N ¼ 55), %
34 A teacher allows a student with a learning
disability in the language arts to use a taperecorder when the student answers the essay
questions on social studies tests.
Ethical 94.1 93.9 94.5
Unethical 5.9 6.1 5.5
26 A teacher always knows the identity of the
student whose essay test she is grading.
Ethical 48.5 42.1 61.8
Unethical 51.5 57.9 38.2
36 To enhance self-esteem, an elementary teacher
addresses only students’ strengths when writing
narrative report cards.
Ethical 40.8 39.5 43.6
Unethical 59.2 60.5 56.4
18 A teacher who knows a student had a bad week
because of problems at home bumps the
student’s participation grade up a few points to
compensate for his bad score on a quiz.
Ethical 24.9 24.6 25.5
Unethical 75.1 75.4 74.5
22 Two teachers teach different sections of the same
course. Because of his belief that students’ work
is rarely perfect, one teacher gives very few
grades of ‘‘A’’.
Ethical 20.1 18.4 23.6
Unethical 79.9 81.6 76.4
S.K. Green et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 999–1011 1007
Test Administration (1 of 2 items), Bias ( 2 of 5
items), Grading Practices (4 of 13 items), Communication about Grading (1 of 4 items), and Standardized Test Preparation (1 of 6 items). Overall, 9 of
the 36 items fell into the high disagreement range
(40–70% agreement), with 10 items in the medium
agreement range (71–79% agreement).
3.5. Agreement analysis on Do No Harm and Score
Pollution items
In examining items related to the two principles,
five out of seven Do No Harm items had high
agreement 71.4%, and only one had high disagreement (14.3%), In addition, Do No Harm items were
all in the top two agreement categories. Only 12 out
of 28 Score Pollution items had high agreement
(43%) and 8 had high disagreement (29%), suggesting more variation in responses for Score Pollution
items.
3.6. Summary of results
In summarizing results for all respondents,
Communication about Grading had the highest levels
of agreement, with 75% of the items in the high
agreement range and one item in the high disagreement range. The categories Confidentiality and
Multiple Assessment Opportunities also had high
levels of agreement, with a majority of items (67%)
in the high agreement range and no items falling in
the high disagreement range. The categories with
the greatest split between respondents were Standardized Test Administration, Bias, and Grading
Practices, with equal numbers of items in the both
high agreement and the high disagreement ranges
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Table 7
Percentage of pre-service and in-service teachers indicating the ethicality of assessment practices in confidentiality
Item # Scenarios about confidentiality Respondents’
answers
Total
(N ¼ 169), %
Pre-service
teachers
(N ¼ 114), %
In-service
teachers
(N ¼ 55), %
9 A teacher discloses to the parents of a student
their child’s score on an intelligence test.
Ethical 75.7 76.3 74.5
Unethical 24.3 23.7 25.5
20 To motivate students to perform better, a science
teacher always announces that he is passing out
scored tests to students in order of points
earned, from the top score to the bottom score.
Ethical 6.5 5.3 9.1
Unethical 93.5 94.7 90.9
16 To calm the fears of distraught parents, a
teacher compares their child’s achievement
scores with the results of the student’s cousin
who is also in the class.
Ethical 2.4 1.8 3.8
Unethical 97.6 98.2 96.4
Note: All items in this table were classified as ‘‘Do No Harm’’.
Table 8
Categories ranked by percent of items showing high agreement (80%+) and high disagreement (40–70%)
Category Items showing high
agreement
Items showing high
disagreement
Communication about grading 3 (75%) 1 (25%)
Multiple assessment opportunities 2 (67%) 0
Confidentiality 2 (67%) 0
Standardized test preparation 3 (50%) 1 (17%)
Standardized test administration 1 (50%) 1 (50%)
Bias 2 (40%) 2 (40%)
Grading practices 4 (31%) 4 (31%)
Note: Rows do not sum to 100% because some items did not meet the criterion of 80–100% for high agreement or the criterion of 50–70%
for high disagreement.
1008 S.K. Green et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 999–1011
and no more than 50% of the items in the high
agreement range. In addition, Do No Harm items
reached higher levels of agreement than Score
Pollution items. Finally, in-service and pre-service
teachers responded similarly to all but one item.
4. Discussion
Each year the media report the instance of an
educator who violates some norm of acceptable
assessment practices. The assessment literature
provides some guidance for teachers in terms of
ethical and unethical practices in standardized
testing; however, few resources in assessment
directly address the ethics of classroom assessment
practices. This initial effort to develop scenarios
that address principles of ethical assessment practice
indicates that pre-service and in-service teachers at
these universities had strong agreement on less than
half of the scenarios presented in this study. These
findings suggest that assessment is a realm without
professional consensus. Thus, courses related to
instruction and assessment should address the needs
of educators in these areas. Strike (1990) suggests
that specific moral concepts are unlikely to be
addressed in pre-service teacher education curriculum. He recommends explicit instruction in ethical
concepts, grounded in the activities that are vital to
the teaching profession. Thus, conversations about
principles such as Do No Harm and Avoid Score
Pollution as they relate to daily assessment practices
in schools could be productive. In addition, research
has shown that support for teachers embedded in
everyday details of their ongoing activities is an
effective approach for influencing beliefs and
practices of teachers (Borko, Mayfield, Marion,
Flexer, & Cumbo, 1997). These findings suggest that
discussions in schools around ethical principles and
classroom assessment could also be useful.
One area that teachers experienced disagreement
was that of grading practices, the area that created
the firestorm in a Midwestern community. Only 4 of
the 13 items reached high agreement, and two of
these items contrasted with the recommendations of
the assessment community. Most assessment experts
agree that grades should reflect only the extent to
which students have mastered the goals of instruction (e.g., Brookhart, 2004; Smith et al., 2001), yet a
strong majority of respondents (85%) rated as
ethical considering effort or late work when
calculating grades (Item 30). Similarly, a majority
of teachers rated as ethical the lowering of students’
grades for late work (Item 24, 86%). Again, this is
an issue of score pollution because the grade begins
to convey information about behavior (i.e., tardiness in completing work) rather than providing
information about a student’s understanding of the
subject matter. These findings suggest that the issue
of score pollution in classroom grading should be
highlighted in future work.
The area of score pollution is important to
continue to address in future research and in the
classroom because of the complexity and nuance
involved. For example, to avoid score pollution, a
grade on a group project should involve an
individual component and not just one grade for
the entire group (Woolfolk, 2003). If the group
component is weighted significantly higher than the
individual component, score pollution can result
because grades then have a stronger probability of
not reflecting the individual student’s mastery of the
learning goals. Similarly, teachers often include
dimensions, such as neatness or class participation,
in their grading schemes that are not directly related
to the mastery of the learning goals. If the
percentage devoted to such factors has minimal
impact on the overall grade, such practices could be
ethical. However, if such factors are weighted
heavily enough to change a grade, they may result
in score pollution. Score pollution is one issue where
theory meets reality in the classroom. The college
incident where professors were fired for refusal to
allocate 60% of their grade to effort is a case in
point.
While we also see the guiding principle of Do No
Harm as a valuable one, we recognize it is not
unproblematic. What constitutes harm is itself often
a matter of judgment within context. Even within
the realm of assessment, there are a variety of harms
that could be done to students. There is the
potential educational harm done as the result of
assessments that fail to accurately measure the
knowledge or skills that they claim to measure.
There is also the potential emotional harm done to
students in the form of anxiety or other stress that
high-stakes assessments often bring about. There is
also the potential for harm of the teacher–student
relationship. Teacher–student trust can be damaged
by assessments that the student perceives as unfair
or unfounded.
At times, Do No Harm emerges in practice as a
choice between harms. A teacher may have to
choose between a high-stakes exam that yields
important data about student performance and the
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emotional stress that such exams cause in students
(and teachers). We see this situation (the choice
between harms) as potentially more ‘‘normal’’ than
the avoidance of harm altogether.
Clearly, the Do No Harm formulation of assessment ethics is not, in and of itself, without
complexities and problems. We believe, however,
that it serves as a useful beginning to approaching
the issues of our research.
To further expand the point of complexity,
educators’ responses probably reflect the extent to
which respondents are bound by normative rules in
their own teaching situations. For example, some
school districts might purchase test preparation
materials for use in the schools, and thus teachers
might consider using such materials as ethical.
When presented with the scenario ‘‘A teacher uses
Scoring High on the MAT, a commercially available
publication with the same format and skills as the
Metropolitan Achievement Test (but not the same
items), in preparation for state testing,’’ teachers in
such school districts might indicate the practice is
ethical. In other settings, however, educators who
use test preparation materials will find such
practices considered to be unethical and their
actions open to sanction (Natrona County School
District, 2001; North Carolina Department of
Public Instruction, 2000; South Carolina Department of Education, 2005).
One of the limitations of the current research
method was the requirement that respondents
endorse a practice as either ethical or unethical
based on limited information. The use of only two
options implies no possibility of a gray area and
requires limited, noncontextual responses. The
contexts established in the scenarios require interpretation, and educators might arrive at differing
decisions due to nuances in their interpretations of
the context. Some educators might consider the
nuances that are implicit in a scenario and see a
given assessment practice as being ethical in some
situations and unethical in others, creating a gray
area for the ethicality of a practice. The scenarios,
however, create an opening for discussion of the
ethics of practice. In future research, the use of
open-ended responses and/or a range of factual
variations for each type of scenario could yield
interesting comparisons.
The designation of items as ethical or unethical in
Section 4 was based on a survey of the assessment
literature and the opinion of leaders in the assessment field. Given that some of these issues do
involve nuances, the findings from the current study
provide a picture of the degree of agreement with
these insights by this group of pre-service and inservice teachers. This study has been an effort to
initiate a dialogue and discussion of these important
issues. As the frequent newspaper anecdotes attest,
a more consistent sense of ethical assessment
practices among teachers, as well as the general
public, is needed. Implementing ethical assessment
in the classroom is not simply a matter of
advocating ‘‘best practice.’’ A number of teachers
have paid a significant price for violating what has
been perceived, rightly or wrongly, as ethical
assessment practice in their communities.
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