According to Fredrik Malm (L), grades are important for capturing students who need more help and encouraging ambitious students to get more involved in school work.
- I have two children myself and I know that with grades, at least for the oldest of those who have grades, he is very committed to reading his homework, he says in Agenda.
According to Anders Jönsson, professor of didactics at Kristianstad University, the grades tend to do neither for nor from high-achieving students who already have good study strategies, while they can have negative effects for low-achieving students.
- If you get low grades repeatedly for a long period, those students tend to stop their involvement in school.
You phase out a little because you do not think it pays off or because you want to avoid failures, he says.
The grades also do not talk about what you have done well or been able to do better, and are therefore not a particularly educational tool.
- The grades are not made to communicate difficulties, they are too blunt for that.
So other types of information and instruments are required to handle that information, says Anders Jönsson.