Eliciting information is one of, if not the, most important reason for marking learners’ work.
Marking lets us elicit information about learners’ knowledge, understanding, existing ability, skill levels, progress and engagement.
The structure of the work we ask learners to do plays a role here, as this determines, to some extent, what we find ourselves marking.
Therefore, the scope of possible information we can elicit is at least partially circumscribed.
Put simply, we elicit different information from an essay and a poem, from video footage of a dance routine and a written explanation of how the routine was choreographed.
This is not a problem.
It just means we need to be aware that when we mark there may be information which we cannot access because of the tasks we have set.
For this reason, it is good to think carefully in advance about what you want to mark and to consider using a range of assessment types.
Elicitation of information does not just include that which pertains directly to the curriculum.
When we mark learners’ work, we also look at the processes they have used to produce their work, the level of effort they have put in, and attendant factors such as how they have responded to challenges and whether their work suggests an interest and engagement with the topic.
The point is that marking gives access to a broad range of information, not just a narrow one, and that this encompasses both curriculum matters and wider elements.
This takes us to the second key purpose of marking, to give feedback.
Effective feedback rests on the elicitation of useful information.
By and large, we mark learners’ work and then return it to them.
In lessons, we find ourselves assessing what learners are doing in the present and giving them feedback in response, but there is a subtle difference.
For the moment, let us stick to the traditional experience of marking.
We set the class some work, take in the books, read through and mark them and, in so doing, provide feedback.
Some of this might be cursory or summative in nature – ticks, crosses, grades, marks and levels – some will highlight simple errors – underlining misspelt words, for example – and some will be of the type that has the biggest impact: formative feedback.
Whatever feedback we use – and it is often a combination of the above three categories – we do not make it a fundamental part of our marking while expecting that learners will ignore it.
Quite the opposite.
We do it because we understand that it is an important mode of communication between teacher and learner.
It is a means through which the teacher can give learners access to their expertise.
Marking is thus about improving our own understanding of where learners are at and then turning this understanding around and using it to help learners better understand where they are at, where they need to go next, what they need to change, keep the same, think about further, and correct.
This is true for a tick or cross in the same way as it is true for a written target.
The difference is in the informational content of those two forms of communication.
A cross indicates that the answer to which it refers is incorrect.
Expanding this out, we can say that a cross signifies a discrepancy between the answer-ideal and the learner’s answer.
I say ‘answer-ideal’ because a cross could be used to indicate incorrectness in an answer for which many possible correct forms could be given, just as it can be used to signal the same thing when there is only one right answer.
In the first case, we might have a written response to a question, in the second case an answer to a sum.
When the learner sees the cross, they understand what this is signalling, in the same way that they understand what a tick signals.
However, they do not at this point have access to additional information that can help them to understand why the answer is wrong.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
In some cases, it is exactly what we are after; because we want learners to go back and work things out for themselves, or because we want them to think more carefully about work that they assumed was correct.
Marking which is only ever of this kind does leave learners short, though.
The deficit can be characterised as a lack of more detailed information. A lack of access to the teacher’s expertise.
That is why formative feedback is so important, why it retains such power to help learners develop, and why it is central to any explanation of why we mark.
So, elicitation of information and provision of feedback, especially of the formative type, are the central reasons why we mark.
But before we finish, it is worth noting a few supplementary points.
Marking can aid motivation.
If learners see their work is not being marked, they may start to question why they are bothering to produce it.
Marking signals that you are attentive to the work learners are doing and that you have their interests at heart.
This doesn’t mean you need to mark everything, all the time.
But it does suggest that keeping up to date is important for maintaining morale as much as anything else.
A related point is that marking is a major means through which teachers can praise learners.
And praise is something from which we all benefit.
It is an acknowledgement of ourselves as individuals, can be seen as a validation of things we’ve done, and acts as a positive reinforcement for the things that attract the praise.
With that said, indiscriminate praise – praise that doesn’t connect to specific things learners have done – isn’t necessarily to be recommend.
Learners will often see through praise of this type and view it sceptically.
Or they may come to assume that indiscriminate praise is the norm and that therefore they do not need to try, because praise will be forthcoming anyway.
Ideally, praise will not be trait focussed (you’re brilliant) and will instead signal to learners why what they’ve done is good (I love the way you kept going even though it was really challenging).
On a different note, marking allows us to fix feedback in time and space.
This contrasts to the ephemeral nature of verbal feedback.
Several benefits accrue.
First, both we and our learners can return to written feedback over time, meaning we can make comparative judgements.
Second, we can be certain about what the feedback was.
This is not always the case with verbal feedback.
Memory lacks the permanence of marks physically inscribed on a piece of paper or typed on a document.
Third, written feedback may be easier for some learners to manipulate.
For example, a learner may find it easier to reflect on a piece of feedback that is written down in front of them, as they do not need to hold this in their working memory while they reflect.
The same cannot be said for verbal feedback.
The final reason why we mark I will mention is tracking progress over time.
This connects to our earlier point about eliciting information.
As a teacher, we need to track progress over time so that we have a clear idea of where learners are going, what progress they are making, and so we can spot patterns and trends.
Regular marking enables this.
And we may do it mainly for our own benefit, with learners seeing the impact only tangentially through the changes we make to lessons and the interventions we put in place considering what the data tells us.
