When the new curriculum for Swedish compulsory school (Lpo 94) and a new grading system were introduced, criteria for assessment were given only for the final marks. For the term marks schools were supposed to set up their own criteria. Originally the school authorities gave no reasons why teachers should do this, but gradually some reasons appeared in various school documents. One reason was that if the criteria were created locally it would give opportunities for teachers and learners to discuss the learning goals in the classroom, and there would also be discussions between colleagues about teaching, learning and assessment. Another reason was that this way the system would be clear to the learners so they would know what was required of them. In my research I study how teachers from 93 different schools interpreted the new ideas in the curriculum in their local plans and criteria for assessment for three different subjects: English, Chemistry and Physical Education. The first part of the study shows that when local criteria were first set up, the learners had not been involved, and the system was not presented clear enough for them to understand the contents. Neither had there been any in-depth discussions in the staff rooms about assessment. In many cases the language of the documents is such that both pupils and parents must find it very difficult to understand what is required in order to achieve a certain mark. One reason for this is, in my opinion, that teachers never quite understood why they should draw up local school plans and criteria, nor did they realize the difference between national and local criteria. In part two of the study the focus is on one subject, English. What research and what new ideas had made their way into the English syllabus and how were they interpreted in the local documents? It turns out, however, that only few schools had integrated the most significant new ideas, like learner influence and intercultural competence in their goals and criteria. The most characteristic feature was rather that many schools created new goals for English. Most frequent were criteria that had to do with grammar. More than half of the schools presented a number of criteria for grammar skills, while in the syllabus grammar is only mentioned once. The reason why grammar is so heavily emphasised is probably not that most English teachers in Sweden find grammar the most important aspect of English teaching. I would rather suspect that quite a few teachers did not have any strategies when they were given the task to formulate criteria, something they had never done before. Instead of starting by asking the obvious question “What are the most important aspects of my subject?” it seems likely that many teachers started out with the question “What can easily be tested in my subject?” The answer as regards English is of course “grammar”, and so the criteria are full of grammar objectives. Obviously the teachers were not properly informed about why they should formulate assessment criteria. They had had very little in-service training about the new syllabus and no training at all to make them better prepared for this task. Consequently they were not prepared to interpret the new ideas that were presented in Lpo 94.

In 1995 Sweden introduced a new curriculum for compulsory school (Lpo 94). A new grading system was also introduced, but criteria for assessment were given only for the final marks. For the term marks schools were supposed to set up their own criteria. In my research I study the historical background to the Swedish grading system and how teachers from schools interpreted the new ideas in the curriculum in their local plans and criteria for assessment for school year eight for three different subjects: English, Chemistry and Physical Education. Two kinds of documents are analyzed in this study. The first category is “official documents”, the curricula and syllabuses used in Swedish compulsory school from its start in 1842 up to the present day, as well as inquiries and reports that deal with the question of grading. The second category is “local documents”, local plans and criteria for assessment. School grades have been known in Sweden since the 16th century. From the beginning the grades were personal comments from the teachers, later the syllabuses stated more precisely the contents that were to be taught and the grading system became more regulated. This was a gradual development that went on until the 1970s. In Lpo 94 objectives were provided by the state, while local authorities, schools and teachers were to decide how to reach the objectives. The examination of the plans and criteria for school year eight shows in short: • More schools 2005 than 1996 have used the central syllabuses for school year nine and made minor changes to fit school year eight. • In the documents from several schools there is no correspondence between the plans and the criteria. The goals set up in the plans do not have equivalents in the criteria. • The documents put high demands on the readers either to be well acquainted with the grading system or to find their own information. • The local documents have clearly been written by the teachers. The Compulsory School Ordinance states that pupils and parents should be involved in the work. This, however, does not seem to be the case. • Many schools seem to have lowered their demands for the grade Passed from 1996 to 2005. In some schools the demands are so low that in practice it seems as if the pupils are more or less guaranteed to get a Passed as long as they attend the lessons. When the parliament decided upon a new grading system there seem to have been no discussions about how goal-referenced grading was supposed to work when there were no goals or objectives. That was left to the schools or teachers to solve. What happened then was that the groups of teachers wrote their own criteria. The idea that teachers and pupils should do this work together was never put into practice. The decentralization of the Swedish school has, as far as grading is concerned, led to an increase in the power of the teachers, while the pupils are still excluded from decision making. / <p>AKADEMISK AVHANDLING som med tillstånd av utbildningsvetenskapliga fakulteten vid Göteborgs universitet för vinnande av doktorsexamen framläggs till offentlig granskning onsdagen den 6 september 2006, klockan 13.00 i Sal M202, Högskolan i Borås.</p>

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<p>Denna rapport följer upp elevers betyg från grundskolan till gymnasiet i en kommun i östra Småland. Det främsta syftet är att få en helhetsbild över skillnader och likheter mellan betyg i de tre högstadieskolorna i kommunen. Studien utgår från elever, som med några få undantag, är födda 1988-1990, d.v.s. de elever som avslutade grundskolan år 2004-2006. Resultatet från studien visar på att det finns signifikanta skillnader mellan grundskolornas betyg, men att skillnaderna i stort sett suddas ut då eleverna kommer upp i gymnasiet.</p>

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur musiklärare ser på betyg, bedömning och betygssättning i musikämnet. Detta görs med anledning av införandet av betyg från årskurs 6, lärarna som intervjuas i studien undervisar alla i årskurs 6. Hur införandet gått till, hur det påverkar undervisningens innehåll, hur lärarna upplever att det påverkar eleverna samt hur det upplevs av lärarna själva är frågor som berörs.   Med utgångspunkt i ramfaktorteorin visar analysen av undersökningen hur yttre ramar som tid, resurser och styrdokument påverkar undervisningens innehåll och lärarens arbetssituation. Detta synliggörs på ett tydligt sätt i och med de förändringar som införandet av betyg från årskurs 6 medfört, framför allt bristen på tid visar sig ha negativ påverkan för en rättvis bedömning i musikämnet. Undersökningen visar att tydligare krav kan komma att ha inverkan på musikämnets status, och även att de bidrar till en musikundervisning med mer kontrollerande och skriftliga uppgifter. En risk för att förändringen innebär ett ökat fokus på det enkelt mätbara identifieras och problematiseras. Vidare berör undersökningen det spänningsfält mellan politiska beslut och den egna professionen som lärare verkar i och dess påverkan på undervisningen.

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Denna rapport följer upp elevers betyg från grundskolan till gymnasiet i en kommun i östra Småland. Det främsta syftet är att få en helhetsbild över skillnader och likheter mellan betyg i de tre högstadieskolorna i kommunen. Studien utgår från elever, som med några få undantag, är födda 1988-1990, d.v.s. de elever som avslutade grundskolan år 2004-2006. Resultatet från studien visar på att det finns signifikanta skillnader mellan grundskolornas betyg, men att skillnaderna i stort sett suddas ut då eleverna kommer upp i gymnasiet.

År 2011 gjordes olika ändringar inom skolan och ett exempel på det var införandet av en ny läroplan för grundskola och gymnasium. Med den nya läroplanen infördes ett nytt betygsystem med sex nya betygssteg, A - F, som innehåller “mellanbetyg” som inte funnits i de tidigare systemen och som är mindre tydligt definierade än övriga betygsgrader. Syftet med studien var att öka förståelsen för betygssättningen och förutsättningarna för en likvärdig betygssättning i idrott och hälsa 1, genom att undersöka hur lärare resonerade kring betygssättning av betygen B och D. I studien genomfördes semistrukturerade intervjuer med lärare på olika skolor som undervisar i idrott och hälsa 1. Empirin från intervjuerna analyserades sedan utifrån likvärdighet och läroplansteori. Studiens resultat visade att lärare resonerar att mellanbetygen B och D kan användas vid enskilda kunskapskrav eller vid en sammanvägning av kunskapskraven till ett slutbetyg. Lärare tolkade läroplanens formulering om till övervägande del på ett kvalitativt, kvantitativt och holistiskt sätt. Slutsatsen är att lärarna använder mellanbetygen på olika sätt och vid olika tillfällen varför förutsättningarna för en likvärdig betygsättning blir sämre. Det leder till att de mål om likvärdighet som skollagen har, inte uppnås, eftersom att utbildningen inte kan sägas vara likvärdig oavsett var i landet den anordnas.