Journal of Emerging Scholarship

The traditional standards-based or competency-based grading systems, preferred by American schools and colleges, do not incor- porate non-academic student achievement factors, such as effort, attendance, or attitude when evaluating student performance. This paper reviews current literature on the effectiveness of an alternative grading system, called effort-based grading, that includes criteria for educators to represent non-academic achievement factors in student evaluation. The research will show that effort-based grading is effective in motivating student achievement up until students are able to exert the least amount of effort for the maximum achievement, where then standards-based or competency-based grading systems become more effective.