ABSTRACT

Educators and institutions have considered and continue to explore alternatives to measure
students’ learning and track their performance. An alternative that started to gain popularity due
to its effectiveness in promoting learning engagement, equity, and inclusion, and helping mitigate
concerns due to mental health was “ungrading.” Ungrading is a pedagogical approach that does
not necessarily eliminate grading, instead, it promotes frequent feedback and engagement with
students on their work to ensure the course learning goals have been met. Unfortunately, studies
measuring the effectiveness of this method targeting STEM majors with a significantly large number
of students enrolled have not been published. Therefore, this study evaluates how students’ performances are impacted by the incorporation of “ungrading” in a civil engineering course offered to
undergraduate students. This study utilized an “ungrading” practice, known as self-assessment, for
the midterm examination and students’ participation was optional. To track students’ performance,
and the effectiveness of the method, the student’s overall course performance, and student feedback
were evaluated to see if there was any difference in grading between those students opting
to participate compared to the ones who did not. Findings indicated that grade performances and
course engagement improve by participating in “ungrading.”

DOI: 10.18260/3-1-1153-36058

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Minerva Bonilla

Daniel Findley