As graders go on grading, their comments become more frustrated and their good-will becomes much sloppier. At least that’s the hypothesis to explain this. Researchers found the reverse effect on graders who sorted in reverse-alphabetical order.
I’m a graduate student who does a lot of grading. Canvas gives me an option to: 1. Hide students’ names while grading and 2. sort in order of submission instead of alphabetical order, so I make sure to use both of those options to reduce any biases like that.
Why in order of submission? Why not random?
I only get two options: Alphabetical order and submission order. If I had random I would use it.
So … graders are fallable humans?
Yea, but this kind of work is needed to encourage blind marking as the default, and not just when standardised testing is involved
I think just randomized order would be enough. It is plausible for teachers to keep track of students’ individual progress.
So, just the people who get marked last are randomly affected?
Not sure what you mean. Do you think that blind marking would somehow eradicate the bias onto these who get graded later?
No. Exactly the opposite. The problem continues to exist, but now it’s hidden.
It’s improved at least, randomized would be different each time and would influence everyone’s grades evenly in a spread out period (in theory.)
So, you’re arguing that randomness is an accurate and acceptable way to score a test?
I wonder how the students feel about that…
This isn’t a flippant remark either. There’s a much larger issue hiding in plain sight. If there’s no relationship between the test and the marking then there’s no point in using this process. In other words, this research appears to be saying something more profound than just commenting on the order of the tests.
I wonder just how big of a difference your place in the alphabetic order makes in general, because it appears everywhere in life
It was enough for me to change my last name to “Aaaamazing”
