RUME 25
2023
Omaha, Nebraska
Shifting Students' Feelings and Mindsets about Learning Mathematics through Standards-Based Grading
Page: 521
Standards-based grading is an alternative assessment method that is gaining traction in undergraduate mathematics courses. Reported benefits for students include reduced math and test anxiety, increased achievement rates, and deeper understanding of concepts. However, evidence is mixed, and researchers have called for qualitative studies to explore students’ feelings and experiences with standards-based grading. In this study, we examined 228 College Algebra students’ responses to an end-of-semester reflection assignment. We discovered that some students expressed a shift in their feelings and mindset towards mathematics, and that these shifts were connected to the standards-based grading assessment structure. We present these findings, which describe how students viewed their learning and how shifts in their feelings and mindsets related to specific features of the course. We also discuss the internal and external motivations for these shifts and pose questions for future research related to students’ experiences with non-traditional assessment structures.