If research should point at one feature defining an educational system, it would be its assessment and evaluation system. Despite whatever overall goals and whatever pedagogical guidelines for an education, at the end of the day the teaching will adapt to the demands from the examinations (Stobart, 2008). Even though these tests only assess a narrow subset of the performance goals, and thus have a low validity, summative assessment results are more and more widely used for accountability purposes (Dolin, 2016). They have a damaging backwash effect on curriculum (Harlen, 2007; Nordenbo et al, 2009), they cause stress among students, and probably most important, they are distorting learning by encouraging a student goal orientation directed towards performance at the expense of learning or mastery goals (Harlen & Deakin, 2003). Research shows that a learning goal orientation is associated with learning enhancing outcomes, like task involvement, effort, persistence, high self-efficacy, whereas performance goals, particularly performance avoidance goals, are associated with surface-level learning strategies, self-handicapping, and academic cheating behaviors (Meece et al., 2006).

On the other hand, massive research reveals that the most effective educational effort to enhance students’ learning is – assessment.  But, notice, the formative use of assessment, close to the classroom (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Hattie & Timperley, 2007). To work focused and determined with formative use of assessment and feedback in the class has a huge learning potential for students. Thus, a coordinated and systematic programme for improving formative use of assessment and reduce the summative use of assessment seems to be the most effective way to deal with the problems related to students’ performance goals orientations.

It is, however, not easy to implement a productive balance between the formative and the summative use of assessment. In general, the summative use of assessment, typically realized as grading, will always overrule the formative aspects (Klapp, 2015). If, for instance, student assignments are giving both formative feedback and a marking, students will seldom notice the formative comments, but only look at the marks, and therefore not improve learning (Butler, 2008).

The author led a major EU research project that implemented various assessment methods used formatively, finding the limitations set by the demands for summative data (Dolin and Evans, 2018). The project developed a model for comparing formative and summative assessment processes and proposed two different approaches to linking formative and summative purposes of assessment (Dolin et al, 2018).

The presentation will refer these insights and their potential consequences for educational practice.

The project was influencing the current educational and political awareness in Denmark of the disadvantages of marks and testing. As a result, the ministry of education started a programme to improve formative feedback in the teaching and opened up for schools to be a ‘grading free school’ or more precisely to ‘toning down the gradings’. 14 upper secondary schools participated in the ‘grading free school’ experiment in the school year 2016/17. They all had various ways to avoid grading as long as legally possible and instead focus on improving feedback to students. The main part of the presentation will give the results from the research following this ‘no grading’ experiment.

The research questions were:

Which ways of avoiding grading was used?

What were teachers’ experiences of the effect of ‘no grading’ on student learning and behavior, like motivation, stress, learning approach, class culture etc.?

What were the effects of ‘no grading’ on teachers’ work, like job satisfaction, daily focus etc.?

Which problems and which benefits did the teachers express?

How was the motivation orientation and stress level for students in the ‘no grading’ classes compared to normal classes?

The general framework for understanding the links between formative and summative use of assessment was developed via teacher action research taken place in the 8 European countries participating in the EU project, as reported in Dolin & Evans (2018). A questionnaire with open response format items was sent to the school leaders in the 12 upper secondary schools participating in the ‘grading free school’ experiment’. The leaders were also asked to select 2-3 teachers as representatives for the experimental classes. These teachers were mailed the same questionnaire. We got response from all the 12 leaderships and from 27 teachers, a response rate of 100 %. The very rich answers were categorized using thematic analysis in order to identify common themes (Braun & Clark, 2006). To measure differences in student motivation orientation and in stress, teachers were asked to let their students in an experimental class fill in a questionnaire and to have students in a non-experimental class fill in the same questionnaire. As instrument for measuring motivation orientation was selected five scales from the internationally validated questionnaire ‘Motivation and Engagement Scale’ (Martin, 2007). As measure for stress level was selected four items of the validated ’Perceived stress scale’ instrument (Cohen et al., 1983). 230 students from experimental classes (10 classes) and 47 students from non-experimental classes (2 classes) filled in the questionnaire after the experiment had run for almost one year. All scales were tested for normality with a Shapiro-Wilks test and if viable, tested for statistical significant differences between effect and control students.

A model for comparing formative and summative assessment processes was developed and two different approaches to linking formative and summative purposes of assessment proposed. Based on these results, 14 Danish upper secondary schools carried through an experiment with no - or as little as possible - grading. This toning down the normal focus on grading in an traditionally grading driven system was positively acknowledged by the teachers. Downplaying grading could support a teaching with a more integrated focus on formative use of assessment than normal. According to teachers, students that received fewer marks became better learners. Due to the low numbers of control students it was not possible to find significant differences between the experimental students and the control students. But the figures clearly indicated that when students are less graded it is likely that they will develop a higher learning goal orientation and a lower stress level than normally graded students. It is combined with several challenges to tone down grading in an educational system traditionally based on grading. One of these is the time needed to implement a higher focus on the formative use of assessment – instead of just grading the students.

Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education: principles, policy & practice, 5(1): 7–73 Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. Butler, R. (1988). Enhancing and undermining intrinsic motivation: The effects of task-involving and egoinvolving evaluation on interest and performance. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 58(1), 1-14. Cohen, S., Kamarck, T. and Mermelstein, R. (1983). A Global Measure of Perceived Stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 24 (4), 385-396. Dolin, J. (2016). Concerns with Using Test Results for Political and Pedagogical Purposes: A Danish Perspective. In S. Scott, D. E. Scott, & C. F. Webber (red.), Assessment in Education: Implications for Leadership. (s. 91-112). Springer. (The Enabling Power of Assessment, Vol. 2). Dolin, J. & Evans, R. (eds.) (2018). Transforming Assessment. Through an Interplay Between Practice, Research and Policy. Springer International Publishing. Dolin, J., Black, P., Harlen, W. & Tiberghien, A. (2018). Exploring relations between formative and summative assessment. I: Dolin, J. & Evans, R. (eds.) (2018). Transforming assessment – through an interplay between practice, research and policy. Springer. Harlen, W., & Deakin Crick, R. (2003). Testing and motivation for learning. Assessment in Education, 20(2), 169–207. Harlen, W. (2007). Assessment of Learning. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Hattie, J. & Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, Vol 77, Issue 1, 81-112. Klapp, A. (2015) Does grading affect educational attainment? A longitudinal study, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 22:3, 302-323 Martin, A. J. (2007). Examining a multidimensional model of student motivation and engagement using a construct validation approach. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 77(2), 413-440. Meece, J. L., Anderman, E. M., & Anderman, L. H. (2006). Classroom goal structure, student motivation, and academic achievement. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 487–503. Nordenbo, S. E., Allerup, P., Andersen, H.L., Dolin, J., Korp, H., Larsen, M.S., Olsen, R.V., Svendsen, M.M., Tiftikçi, N., Wendt, R.E., Østergaard, S. (2009). Pædagogisk brug af test – Et systematisk review. København: Danmarks Pædagogiske Universitetsforlag og Dansk Clearinghouse for Uddannelsesforskning. (in Danish, title in English: Pedagogical use of tests – A systematic review) Stobart, G. (2008). Testing Times: The use and abuse of assessment. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.