Analytic or holistic? a study about how to increase the agreement in teachers’ grading

In Sweden, grades are used for selection to upper-secondary school and higher education, even though agreement in teachers’ grading is low and the selection therefore potentially unfair. Furthermore, measures taken to increase the agreement have not been successful. This study has explored how to increase agreement in teachers’grading by comparing analytic and holistic grading. Teachers (n = 74) have been randomly assigned to two different conditions (i.e. analytic or holistic grading) in either English as a foreign language (EFL) or mathematics. Findings suggest that analytic grading is preferable to holistic grading in terms of agreement among teachers. The effect was stronger and statistically significant in EFL, but could be observed in mathematics as well. However, teachers in the holistic conditions provided more references tocriteria in their justifications, whereas teachers in the analytic conditions to a much larger extent made references to grade levels without specifying criteria.