Question- What are the disadvantages of the grading system?

Ans.

Certain disadvantages of the grading system are as follows:

(i) One of the biggest drawbacks of the grading system is the decrease in the performance of the learners. Students know that they can easily get the targeted grades so they don’t put much effort. Also it leads to a serious lack of motivation as a student getting 90% and the one getting 96% may be awarded the same grade.

(ii) Accuracy in result is often not maintained. We can only get to know about the grade achieved by the students instead of the actual ability of the student.

(iii) Competition is tremendously decreased. Students just focus on grade attaining the passing marks instead of putting their main focus on getting highest marks. This results in decreased competition and makes the student lazy and drop their intellectual level.

(iv) Lethargy sinks in the students. As we know that assignments, projects and attendance are counted in the grades. So, students perform well in these activities and get grades instead of performing well in the exams which results in increased lethargy.

(v) Sometimes, the pressure of grades is too much and it itself becomes a distraction in teaching among teachers and learning among students. This may result in risky behaviours like suicidal tendencies and other disorders.

(vi) The grading system has a tendency to be misused some schools attempt to enhance the discriminatory function of letter grade by adding pluses or minuses or by pairing letter grades with percentage indicators.

(viii) Student’s cultural differences, their appearance, family backgrounds and lifestyles can sometimes result in biased evaluations of their academic performance. Teacher’s perceptions of student’s behaviour can also significantly influence their judgements of academic performance.

(viii) Many times student’s tend to withdraw from learning upon receiving low grades. And instead of promoting greater efforts it prompts students to blame themselves for the low marks and a feeling of helplessness to improve prevails.

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