- Title: A marked improvement? A review of the evidence on written marking
- Authors: Education Endowment Foundation and Oxford University
- Access the original paper here
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Paper summary
This review of marking practices, commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), examines the evidence for a variety of marking approaches. The review notes a dearth of high-quality research in this area, particularly in primary and secondary school settings. The authors synthesize findings from various studies, offering a comprehensive analysis of common marking practices, including grading, providing corrections, thoroughness, pupil responses, creating a dialogue, using targets, and considering frequency and speed. The review highlights the need for further research on specific marking strategies, particularly those that focus on the long-term impact of different approaches and their effectiveness in improving pupil progress. The authors also emphasize the need for a balance between efficient marking practices and ensuring that feedback is meaningful, manageable, and motivating for teachers and students alike.
What are the key implications for teachers in the classroom?
- The quality of existing evidence focused specifically on written marking is low. Few large-scale, robust studies have examined marking practices. Most studies that have been conducted are small in scale and/or based in the fields of higher education or English as a foreign language (EFL).
- Teachers should differentiate between careless mistakes and errors resulting from misunderstanding. Errors resulting from misunderstanding may be best addressed by providing hints or questions that lead pupils to underlying principles. Careless mistakes may be best addressed by simply marking the mistake as incorrect, without giving the right answer.
- Awarding grades for every piece of work may reduce the impact of marking, particularly if pupils become preoccupied with grades at the expense of considering teachers’ formative comments.
- The use of targets to make marking as specific and actionable as possible is likely to increase pupil progress.
- Pupils are unlikely to benefit from marking unless some time is set aside to enable pupils to consider and respond to marking.
- Some forms of marking, including acknowledgement marking, are unlikely to enhance pupil progress. Schools should consider marking less, but marking better.
- There is an urgent need for more studies so that teachers have better information about the most effective marking approaches.
- Teachers should consider the multiple trade-offs involved in many decisions about marking. Trade-offs might relate to workload, but also relate to other areas, such as the amount of work undertaken by the teacher versus the student, and the speed with which marking is completed versus how detailed feedback is.
Additionally, a 2016 report from the Independent Teacher Workload Review Group suggested that providing written feedback on pupils’ work has become disproportionately valued by schools, and the quantity of feedback has too often become confused with quality. The report noted that there is no ‘one size fits all’ way to mark, and recommended an approach based on professional judgment.
Quote
A mantra might be that schools should mark less in terms of the number of pieces of work marked, but mark better.
