Student Preferences for Grade Weighting in Introductory Physics

Grading practices are known to influence student behavior and learning, particularly in introductory physics courses. On the road to researching and recommending grading practices, we must gain an understanding of how students think about grades. We administered a survey about grading to our introductory students, with a combination of free-response and numerical questions. The free-response questions generated feedback about students' experiences with stress related to grades and their perspectives on the representation of effort and mastery in course grades. The numerical questions asked about their preferences for weighting two important dimensions of grading in a physics course: their understanding of the course material, and their effort toward completing coursework. The numerical responses reveal that just over half our introductory students weighted effort more heavily than understanding. Filtering these numerical responses by students' discussion of stress, effort, and mastery reveals insights into their thinking about how grading is structured.