Beyond Grades: Rethinking Assessment Practices in Professional Physical Therapist Education

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Health Professions Education
• Physical Therapy

Background:

• Traditional grading may not fully assess adaptive learning and reflective processes in physical therapist development.
• Ranking-based grades can reinforce power hierarchies and disproportionately affect marginalized learners.
• Ungraded assessment offers an equitable alternative focusing on assessment for learning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the implementation and impact of an ungraded assessment approach in a graduate-level physical therapy course.
• To evaluate the effect of ungrading on learner engagement, reflection, and self-regulated learning.
• To assess the feasibility of ungrading within Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) education.

Main Methods:

• A quality improvement (QI) project utilized the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) methodology.
• A first-year DPT course was converted to an ungraded assessment format.
• Data were collected from multiple sources and summarized using thematic and descriptive analysis.

Main Results:

• Learner experiences and perceptions of the ungraded approach were overwhelmingly positive.
• The approach fostered growth in adaptive learning skills, intrinsic motivation, and self-regulated learning.
• Student learning and content mastery were effectively evaluated, with high achievement and no failures.

Conclusions:

• The ungraded approach demonstrated positive learner feedback and effective evaluation of student learning.
• The QI project's success supports the continuation of the ungraded approach in future course iterations.
• Further research will focus on formal outcomes, feasibility in DPT education, and developing Master Adaptive Learner skills.