Conference Agenda

This study aims to increase understanding of how grades affect students’ motivation and well-being by examining students’ own perceptions of how grades influence them in school. The study investigates (1) the role of student background characteristics (gender, cognitive ability, and parental education) in perceptions of grades as motivating or as sources of stress and anxiety, and (2) the extent to which these perceptions are related to students’ academic achievement.

Grades constitute a central component of all European education systems, although their design vary. When policies concerning how and when grades should be applied in schools are established, they are partly based on assumptions about how grades affect students’ behavior. However, research presents mixed conclusions regarding the impact of grades on students. Some studies conclude that grades, particularly those of a high-stakes character, have a positive effect on students’ academic achievement; students are expected to exert greater effort and devote more time to schoolwork when they are aware that their knowledge will be evaluated (e.g. Hvidman & Sievertsen, 2021). Other studies, however, suggest that grades are negatively related to future achievements (Klapp, 2015) and associated with reduced well-being and lower academic self-concept among students (Cashman et al., 2023; Linder et al., 2025).

Drawing on Pekrun’s (2006) control-value theory, this study focuses on the emotions and perceptions that students themselves attribute to grades. Such emotions are a key part of understanding how assessments can be expected to affect students’ learning and well-being in school. In control-value theory, achievement emotions arise before, during, and after engaging in activities that are assessed. Positive activating emotions (e.g., enjoyment) are believed to facilitate students’ future performance by strengthening academic self-concept and intrinsic motivation, while successful performance, in turn, promotes positive activating emotions. Negative emotions (e.g., anxiety) are expected to impair performance, partly because coping with these emotions requires cognitive resources or leads students to allocate their resources to domains other than schoolwork (Pekrun et al., 2023).

Qualitative research examining students’ perceptions of grading shows substantial variation between individuals. Some students perceive grades as motivating, “a push in the right direction”, whereas others primarily experience them as distracting or as sources of stress and anxiety. Furthermore, these perceptions may coexist within the same individual (Costa et al., 2024; Liljeröd et al., 2025). However, how common these perceptions are, and how they differ across groups of students, is not well understood.

A large body of research examining the effects of assessment on students has shown that differences can be related to student background characteristics. For example, associations between grades and reduced perceived well-being as well as academic self-concept appear to be stronger among girls than among boys (Linder et al., 2025). Studies identifying negative associations between assessment and motivation often find these associations to be more pronounced among low-achieving students (Harlen & Deakin Crick, 2002; Klapp, 2015). It is therefore reasonable to expect that students’ perceptions of how grades affect them vary across student groups.

Background

In contemporary European higher education, the pursuit of “social justice” has transcended the initial goal of widening participation to focus on the equity of student outcomes. The European Higher Education Area (EHEA), through successive ministerial communiqués, has consistently emphasised the “social dimension” of higher education, positing that the student body should reflect the diversity of our populations. However, persistent awarding gaps remain a pan-European challenge. Marginalised ethnic (BAME) groups and students from lower socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds continue to experience systemic underperformance (Mountford-Zimdars et al., 2015; OfS, 2023). This study argues that these disparities are not the result of individual student “deficits” but are structurally embedded in the assessment infrastructures of modern universities.

While extensive literature documents performance disparities (Canal & Child, 2025; Yu et al., 2023), there is a dearth of large-scale empirical evidence exploring how the underlying assessment types are associated with students' educational outcomes. This study challenges the “neutrality” of assessment, suggesting that different ways of evaluating knowledge act as structural filters that exclude certain groups of students (McArthur, 2016). Furthermore, it questions the current international policy trend toward reducing assessment loads. In contemporary discourses, lightening the load is advocated to improve student well-being, yet the impact of such reductions on equity remains under-theorised and empirically contested.

Theoretical Framework

This study is grounded in the tripartite taxonomy of assessment standards discourses proposed by Ajjawi et al. (2021):

1. Representational Discourse: This hegemonic mode assumes that written standards are objective and that explicit criteria ensure a “level playing field”. From a Bourdieusian perspective (Bourdieu, 1986), this objectivity serves as a “neutral façade”. It rewards the inherited cultural capital, “institutional savvy”, and elaborated linguistic codes typical of privileged social groups. For students from marginalised backgrounds, this discourse functions as a structural barrier, demanding conformity to tacit academic conventions they have not been afforded the opportunity to inherit.
2. Sociocultural Discourse: This perspective views assessment as a socially situated practice within specific disciplinary communities. While it acknowledges that knowledge is negotiated, it remains susceptible to the power dynamics of professional judgement, where subjective biases can inadvertently marginalise “outsider” perspectives (Reay, 2018).
3. Sociomaterial Discourse: This discourse views assessment as a “material assemblage” of humans, tools, and environments. According to Fenwick and Edwards (2013) and McArthur’s (2023), sociomaterial approaches allow students to leverage their practical agency and lived experiences. By foregrounding relational practices rather than abstract representation, this assessment type may empower historically marginalised groups to bypass traditional cultural gatekeeping.

This research explores how institutional habitus shapes the awarding gap. The central research questions are:

1. To what extent does assessment load and different assessment discourses (representational, sociocultural, and sociomaterial) associate with students’ academic performance across the university?  

2. How does the association between assessment characteristics and academic performance vary systematically across different student subgroups, specifically in terms of ethnicity and socioeconomic status?  

Academic self-concept (ASC), i.e., self-related thoughts and beliefs about the ability to succeed in academic tasks and achievement situations (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003), is considered a prerequisite of achievement motivation (Shavelson et al., 1976) and is, therefore, of utmost importance for students’ academic functioning. Research has shown that positive ASC is associated with higher educational achievement, more ambitious career aspirations (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003), and contributes to students’ well-being and school satisfaction (Marcionetti & Rossier, 2016).

Theories of ASC have identified some key processes that shape the formation of ACS. The primary source of ASC are reflected experiences from past performance situations (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003; Shavelson et al., 1976) on the basis of which students form beliefs about their competence. Longitudinal studies have demonstrated that early academic achievement explains gains in later ASC and early ASC is associated with later gains in educational achievement, according to a so-called reciprocal effect model (Wu et al., 2021). As academic performance cannot be easily evaluated against an objective accomplishment standard, ASC is heavily influenced by a frame of reference the students use when judging their academic ability. The same achievement may, therefore, lead to different ASC levels, depending on which frame of reference the students choose. Students can use social, dimensional, or temporal frames of reference, but social comparison often serves as prominent source of information about one’s perceived competence in educational settings (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003).

Marsh (1984) called the conceptual model of ASC formation in social comparison with significant others, usually classmates, the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE). This effect describes that students develop poorer ASC when they attend schools or classes with higher ability level as compared to equally able students who are placed in schools or classes with lower average achievement. While there is strong evidence for the universality of BFLPE across education systems and cultural contexts (Guo et al., 2018; Seaton et al., 2009), less is known about potential variables that could moderate the negative effect of average school or class achievement on student ASC.

Because ASC results from evaluative processes occurring in interactions between individual students and their learning environment, two categories of moderators can be distinguished (Schwabe et al., 2019): (1) student individual characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, personality traits or ability level, and (2) classroom-related characteristics, such as socioemotional climate or teachers’ pedagogical approaches. Recent research suggests that both categories may play a role in moderating BFLPE (Stockus & Zell, 2024), but classroom-related factors are of particular practical relevance given their malleability and openess to change. In particular, teacher-student relationships (Schwabe et al., 2019) and individualized instruction (Roy et al., 2015) have been found to moderate BFLPE in European education systems, but moderation effect was not confirmed for teacher grading practices and the use of individualized frame of reference, i.e., evaluating student performance in terms of individual learning progress (Stockus & Zell, 2024). However, this line of research remains limited, restricting the generalizability of the findings.

This submission contributes to research on BFLPE moderators by providing empirical evidence from mainstream lower secondary schools in Czechia. Within Europe, Czech education system is among the most decentralized, with schools enjoying a high degree of autonomy over curriculum organization, instructional methods, assessment practices, and their adaptation to students’ needs. In addition, external student assessment using standardized tests does not take place at primary and lower secondary levels, meaning that students rely on classroom-related feedback regarding their academic performance.

Grades are intended to function as meaningful and legitimate indicators of students’ subject-specific knowledge. In a criterion-referenced grading system, grades should accurately reflect the extent to which students meet predefined criteria for different performance levels and thereby provide a trustworthy measure of achievement.

However, an expanding body of research suggests that grade inflation has become increasingly prevalent across educational systems, raising concerns about the validity and comparability of grades as measures of student achievement. When grades no longer reliably distinguish between levels of performance, their role as signals for selection, evaluation, and accountability is weakened.

Several explanations for grade inflation have been proposed, including heightened accountability metrics imposed on schools and teachers, increased competition between schools for enrollment (especially commercially managed independent schools dependent on revenue for continued operation), growing pressure from parents and students for higher grades given significant labor-market consequences associated with grades, and shifts toward more subjective assessment practices.

Grade inflation accordingly has important implications at both individual and system levels. For students, inflated grades may foster unrealistic self-perceptions and complicate transitions to higher levels of education. At the system level, grade inflation can undermine equity and public trust, particularly when grading practices vary systematically across schools or student groups. Consequently, understanding the causes, patterns, and consequences of grade inflation remains a central concern in both educational research and policy.

In Sweden, the introduction of a criterion-referenced grading system in the early 1990s was met with criticism, partly because all students could, in principle, attain the highest grade if the criteria were met. Grades in the Swedish system are assigned by teachers, and there is no formal external mechanism to ensure uniform interpretation of grading criteria. As a result, decisions regarding whether students meet the requirements for specific grade levels rest largely with individual teachers, increasing the risk of inequity in grading practices (Abrams, 2016; Vlachos, 2019).

In the United States, grading is likewise defined by a criterion-referenced system. However, since 1968, the federal government has administered an exam every two years in reading, writing, math, and science to a sample of fourth- and eighth-grades in all 50 states. Results on this exam, called the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), or the Nation’s Report Card, have slid significantly while student grades at the secondary level, according to surveys by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), have climbed substantially (Sanchez & Moore, 2022). A similar pattern has emerged at the tertiary level, with results on university-entrance exams declining significantly over the past three decades while student grades at universities have climbed substantially (Fair, 2023; Nierenberg, 2023; Radavoi, Quadrelli, & Collins, 2025; Arsenault, 2026).

The overarching aim of the present study is to document grade inflation in Sweden and the United States at every level where data are available, to explore explanations for this grade inflation, and to assess implications in Sweden and the United States. For comparative purposes, data for nations with little, if any, grade inflation will be presented.