But down the hall, another teacher believes the opposite, that it's unethical to include surprise items on a test when students are using a study guide, but fine to weight homework for report card grades. This teacher always takes student effort into account when grading and would never give an A to a student with incomplete work.

In a recent issue of Teaching and Teacher Education, a team of researchers reports that such inconsistencies in beliefs about what is fair and unfair in student assessment are common among educators.

Read these other articles in the October 2007 issue Middle school study makes case for single-gender classes for math Leading change? Stay away from debate Teaching critical thinking most effective when tied to content, knowledge What is the best way to teach writing? Study looks at how 41% of low-performing high schools made AYP Subscription information

Based on the results of their survey, which asked teachers to rate assessment practices as "ethical" or "unethical", ethics guidelines for assessment are clearly needed for educators.

"Results showed strong agreement among the educators on fewer than half of the scenarios presented in this study," the authors report. "These findings suggest that assessment is currently an educational realm without professional consensus."

The researchers used a standard of 80% rating as ethical or unethical to identify areas of high agreement among teachers on the assessment scenarios presented in the survey.

Key areas of disagreement
In the survey, teachers disagreed most about:

• weighting homework in determining report grades (57% ethical, 43% unethical);
• giving a student an A if he or she had mastered the course objectives but had not completed all the homework assignments (37% ethical, 63% unethical);
• using surprise test items that are not in a study guide (34% ethical, 66% unethical);
• only addressing student strengths in report cards (41% ethical, 59% unethical), and
• grading essay tests while knowing the identities of student writers (48% ethical, 52% unethical).

View recent issues of Educational Research Newsletter.

Teachers largely agreed that using many forms of assessment in the classroom is ethical (99%), that relying on one form of assessment is unethical (85%) and that relying on a very small number of assessments for determining grades is unethical (78%).

In other areas of agreement, teachers rated:

• lowering a report card grade for disruptive behavior as unethical (85%),
• considering student effort when determining grades as ethical (85%) and
• lowering a grade for late work as ethical (86%).

Please add your thoughts on our new Message Board. Do you have any ethical concerns about assessment? Does more need to be done at the school and district level to provide teachers with guidance on ethical issues in assessment? Click on icon to post your comment.

The web-based, 36-item survey was taken by educators in the graduate and undergraduate programs at two major southern US universities. There were 169 respondents, 114 pre-service and 55 in-service. The 36 items covered topics in seven categories: Standardized test preparation, standardized test administration, multiple assessment opportunities, communication about grading, grading practices, bias and confidentiality.

Teachers were in greater agreement over items related to communicating about grades, confidentiality and multiple assessment opportunities, and were in less agreement over items related to bias and grading practices.

Pre-service teachers were more likely to rate the following practice as ethical: A teacher creates learning activities with specific math problems that are included in the annual achievement test. In-service teachers were more likely to rate the practice as unethical. Otherwise there were few differences between the two groups.

To sign up to receive free monthly research updates, please click here

Do no harm
Stressing the importance of developing guiding principles and an ethics framework for educators, researchers reviewed previous research and found two general principles that could provide a starting point for developing ethics guidelines. These two principles are: "do no harm" and "avoid score pollution."

"Do no harm" focuses on the importance of protecting the rights of individuals affected by an evaluation, the authors write. "Fairness (or protection of student rights) is a general principle that no one contests in the abstract," they write. "However, thinking about causing harm focuses the discussion at the level of the implications of everyday practice. Educators must be well versed in the potential impact of the practices they use because their assessment and evaluation may have a variety of unintended consequences for their students.

Read these other FREE Articles: Research supports both pros and cons of NCLB debate NY middle school makes big gains, with accelerated curriculum for all 4th-grade summer reading program keeps at-risk youth from falling behind Grade 2 boys respond to boy-friendly books, but not to male readers Latinas who get academic counseling more likely to go to college Is there a 'disability' for foreign languages?

"For example, a teacher who uses surprise items on a test that did not appear on the study guide may do harm by breaking the implicit bond of trust between teacher and student. A teacher who passes out tests from highest grade to lowest may do harm by breaching confidentiality. Such actions imply lack of respect for student rights and needs."

Avoid score pollution
The other principle, "avoid score pollution", is based on the premise that any practice that improves test performance without increasing actual mastery of content produces score pollution. Practicing before a test with actual test content would produce score pollution, the authors write, and so would modifying grades or scores because of student effort, lateness or behavior problems.

In their survey responses, teachers showed more agreement on items that related to the "do no harm" principle than on the items that related to "avoid score pollution."

As a working principle, the authors propose using a definition of ethical behavior as "acting based on one's judgment of an obligation-- a duty by virtue of a relationship with a person, persons, or social institution."

Schools and districts should encourage conversations about ethical issues in assessment, and teacher training programs should address ethics issues in courses on instruction and assessment, the researchers say. Disagreement among teachers on items related to score pollution indicates that classroom grading should be especially highlighted in discussions on ethics. Even with guidelines, however, there will always be the need for educators to exercise judgment. "Educators must be given the space, autonomy, and support to learn to use their judgment," the authors write.

"Ethics in classroom assessment practices: Issues and attitudes," by Susan Green, Robert Johnson et. al. Teaching and Teacher Education, October 2007, Volume 23, Issue 7, pp. 999-1011.

Published in ERN October 2007 Volume 20 Number 7

Here are some recent responses to this article from your colleagues. Click the Message Board button to add your thoughts!

Having worked in in industry for a number of years I realized that very few deadlines exist for the majority of workers. Why would we penalize a student for handing something in late - I think its mostly because it is an inconvenience for the teacher. I tend to increasingly look for ways of making my courses deadline free (It's not possible As for testing, what does my customer expect their grade to be (student and parent), what does my employer expect my class grades to be and how do I use that information to my advantage in stimulating learning?
Peter Renders 10/14/07 at 07:19 PM