Instructional Goals and Grading Practices of Graduate Students after One Semester of Teaching Experience

TL;DR

This study examines how first-year graduate teaching assistants' grading practices and beliefs evolve after one semester and professional development, revealing limited changes in goals but some shifts in perceptions of student work quality.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into TAs' grading beliefs and practices after one semester, highlighting the need for targeted PD to align grading goals with practices.

Findings

TAs' grading goals remained largely unchanged after one semester.

Some TAs' perceptions of required reasoning in solutions shifted.

Grading practices often did not match TAs' stated goals.

Abstract

Teaching assistants (TAs) are often responsible for grading student solutions. Since grading communicates instructors' expectations, TAs' grading decisions play a crucial role in forming students' approaches to problem solving (PS) in physics. We investigated the change in grading practices and considerations of 18 first-year graduate students participating in a TA professional development (PD) course. The TAs were asked to state their beliefs about the purpose of grading, to grade a set of specially designed student solutions, and to explain their grading decisions. We found that after one semester of teaching experience and participation in PD, TAs did not significantly change their goals for grading (i.e., a learning opportunity for both the student and the instructor) or their grading practice. In addition, TAs' grading practice frequently did not align with their goals. However, some TAs' perceptions of the level of explication required in a student solution did change. Our findings suggest that in order for PD to help TAs better coordinate their goals with appropriate grading practices, PD should focus on TAs' perception of sufficient reasoning in student solutions.