Fair Assessment in Higher Education

Abstract

Even though grading is a subjective process, it is an important component of student assessment that has real-life consequences for students. As fairness has become one of the most important dilemmas related to assessment, much effort has been made to address this problem by constructing procedures to assess student performance. However, the complexity of fair student assessment creates very diffuse rules for teachers when creating assessment or grading criteria. In addition, the significant degree of uncertainty in the grading process might lead to unfairness and biases. The present report deals with the issues of bias in grading in higher education, and gives suggestions to improve fairness in assessment.