Grading as Performance Evaluation

Abstract

Because performance evaluation is part of the public administration curriculum, the examples teachers set through grading—a form of performance evaluation—are important models for students. Mainstream performance evaluation literature offers a variety of goals of performance evaluation and techniques to implement it. A small but important part of the literature challenges the concept that performance evaluation is inherently flawed due to unequal power distribution in organizations and the impossibility of quantifying what is essentially ambiguous. Mindful of the goals of and the problems inherent in grading, the author presents a technique that may help faculty to improve their grading practices and may help their students understand the difficulties of good performance evaluation.