Grading Rigor in Counselor Education: A Specifications Grading Framework.
Regarding didactic and clinical experiences, evaluation and grading are important areas of curriculum in counselor education. The American Counseling Association's (ACA, 2014) ACA Code of Ethics dictates that counselor educators provide students with "the levels of competency expected, appraisal methods, and timing of evaluations for both didactic and clinical competencies" (Standard F.9.a. The Council of Accreditation for Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP, 2016) agrees in stating that course syllabi must contain student evaluation criteria and procedures for grading. Further, CACREP (2016) provides guidelines for programs to teach doctoral students about "instructional and curriculum design, delivery, and evaluation methods relevant to counselor education evaluation methods pertaining to counselor education" (Section 6.B.3.d..CACREP (2016) standards provide guidelines in the eight areas of counseling competence which are: professional counseling orientation and ethical practice, social and cultural diversity, human growth and development, career development, counseling and helping relationships, group counseling and group work, assessment and testing, research and program evaluation. However, these guidelines offer very little direction to counselor educators on how to evaluate knowledge and skill outcomes. CACREP (2016) asserts that individual counselor education programs should ultimately decide on how they want to meet the standards.Despite emphasis on evaluation, McAuliffe and Eriksen (2011) state there has not been much formal training concerning teaching for faculty. Even though counselor educators spend inordinate amounts of time grading; grading rigor in counselor education has not been addressed. Other fields have similar problems in the training of faculty, evaluation, and grading rigor. With little research on grading in counselor education, many counselor educators follow the assumptions of traditional systems of grading.One assumption of the traditional grading system is that there is a strong correlation between grades and student learning outcomes. Institutions of higher learning and employers tend to agree with the correlation of grades, student learning outcomes, and assessment (Nilson, 2015) Employers have historically thought grades correlated with job performance, but Samson, Graue, Weinstein, and Walberg (1984) have shown that GPAs were only responsible for 2.4% variance in career success. In higher learning, one would assume that the bestowal of academic diploma would demonstrate that students have mastered all the competencies in their fields of study. However, the American Institute of Research (2006) noted that fewer than 50% of four year graduates and less than 25% of two year graduates demonstrated literary proficiency. Additionally, between the 1980's and 2000's, GPAs have increased significantly while studying time has decreased by 50% (Babcock, 2010) During the late 1990's, law schools were so skeptical of grades that many depended heavily on standardized tests rather than grades for admission (Wongsurawat, 2009).Lack of academic rigor by faculty has been cited as a major reason for grades not representing competence (Gordon Palmon, 2010; Schnee, 2008) Passing grades do not necessarily mean students have achieved learning outcomes because faculty may give students passing but lower grades because students have not achieved learning outcomes. (Nilson, 2015) Nilson (2015) has proposed specifications grading which is a precise evaluative tool constructed to increase grading rigor. The purpose of this paper is to explain the components of specifications grading and to demonstrate how specifications grading can be utilized in counselor education.Specifications GradingSpecifications grading is a grading procedure which requires students to fulfill certain requirements for an assignment to be acceptable. Specifications grading seeks to improve rigor, reduce grade inflation, and save instructors time in grading (Nilson, 2015)