Under min sista termin på lärarprogrammet har fokus bland annat legat på betyg. Vanligtvis är det politikers syn på betyg som framkommer i betygsdebatten. Syftet med min undersökning är att lyfta fram elevperspektivet i betygsdebatten. Detta ledde fram till min huvudfråga om vilken syn gymnasieelever har på betyg. För att få reda på detta ställde jag delfrågor om betygens rättvisa, betygens existens och upplevelsen av betyg. Metoden jag använde för att besvara frågorna var intervjuer med gymnasieelever på Karlbergsgymnasiet i Åmål. Resultatet av intervjuerna sammanställdes genom ad hoc-metoden, vilket innebar att jag försökte finna mönster i elevernas svar. Det jag kom fram till i min undersökning är att majoriteten av gymnasieeleverna tycker att betygen inte är rättvisa. Men de anser att betyg behövs eftersom de fungerar som urvalsinstrument till högre studier och jobb och ger information om hur eleven ligger till. Flera elever vill ha fler betygssteg, för att betygen ska bli mer rättvisa. Vissa elever tycker betyg är dåligt för att de jämför sig med andra och får dåligt självförtroende av det. De negativa känslorna som ett dåligt betyg kan frambringa gör att vissa elever ger upp skolarbetet. Men andra elever motiveras av betyg och studerar mer på grund av dem. Detta visar på komplexiteten i fenomenet betyg. Gymnasieeleverna har både en positiv och negativ syn på betyg. / During my last term of teacher training the syllaby content, among other subjects, have been focused on school grades. Commonly the debate concerning school grades reflect the opinions of party politicians. The purpose of my research is to enhance the perspective of pupils´ opinions in this same debate. This very purpose brought on my main issue concerning the idea about grades among upper secondary school pupils. In order to investigate this issue I have formulated questions, put to upper secondary pupils, about the apprehension of fairness or justice in school grades, their opinion about the presence of school grades and their personal experience of them. The research method choosen to answer my questions was interview. Upper secondary pupils in a community of southern Sweden were interviewed. The answers were analysed and structured according to the ad-hoc method, indicating that I tried to reveal patterns among the expressions given by the pupils. The findings from my study imply that a majority of the students interviewed do consider grades to be unfair. They do think though that grades are needed as a means of selection for higher education as well as employment and that grades do inform about the level of achievement of the pupils. Several pupils in my study advocate an increased number of grade levels to promote more justice in the use of school grades. Some pupils think that grades are bad because they use to compare themselves to other schoolmates, a behaviour that tends to lower their ego. The negative feelings that may be accomplished by low grades tend to make some pupils give up school. Other students find grades motivating and grades make them study more earnestly. These answers do reveal the complexity in the issue of school grades. Upper secondary pupils do hold positive as well as negative attitudes towards school grades.

Erfarenhet från min musikundervisning främst inom grundskolan har motiverat en undersökning av eventuellt samband mellan elevernas erhållna betyg i ämnet musik och gruppstorlek. Undersökningen begränsades till att omfatta elevernas betyg i ämnet musik åk 9, gruppstorlek samt om flickors och pojkars resultat skilde sig. Av undersökningens resultat gick det inte att bekräfta något samband. Skillnaden mellan undersökningens resultat och skolverkets medelbetyg skilde sig på det viset att skolverkets betyg var något högre i snitt. Fler aspekter hade behövts undersökas för att påvisa ett eventuellt samband mellan de deltagande elevernas kunskaper och deras erhållna betyg. / My experience from teaching music in elementary school has motivated this study, the purpose of which is to evaluate the relationship between pupils’ grades and the size of classes in the classroom. The investigation was limited to only include grades from the 9th (last) year of elementary school in the subject of music, the size of the class, and the differences between girls and boys. The results of the study demonstrated that no correlation between higher grades and smaller classes was established. The differences between the results and the statistics from the Swedish National Agency for Education were too small to prove any connections. Additional aspects must be evaluated to be able to show any relationship, and prove a connection between given grades, the size of classes, and their skills

Grades and assessment are a natural part in the school's everyday existence, deliberations about equivalent assessment is discussed all the time between teachers, students, home and school. They that in front are influenced of a grade or a judgement are in first hand the students and therefore are the important for the students to know which objectives and grade criteria that apply for them to achieve at the end of years 9. The aim with this survey is to get the knowledge about how a tutor grade family’s student in a preparatory class in stopped of years 9, in Swedish as a second language. Do the students in a preparatory class's get grades or a judgement? This is interesting also in order to know to which grade criteria students in a preparatory class have to achieve in the compulsory education’s later years and to know how a tutor assesses these students on the basis of those objectives and criteria that apply. In my survey, I have been paid from the tutors ' perspectives on how a grade or an assessment gives equivalent for students in a preparatory class and in order to few a better understanding to how man that teachers sets a grade or gives an equivalent judgement to students that possibly have difficulties to achieve the grade criteria in Swedish as a second languages, because of the language. The procedure in this work has been to interview different tutors that work in a preparatory class, from differently multicultural schools in municipality places in Stockholm. During the result account, the tutors' obvious replies are expressed on the basis of those interviews and research questions as been used as aids and that an important basis in order to can to implement this survey. The result in this survey is that students in a preparatory class not sheep a grade since they do not achieve the requirements for validated in Swedish as a second language without the students’ sheep instead a written judgement. This can cause misunderstandings between teachers and students, then the school has a grade criteria for students in a preparatory class's man knows that they cannot to achieve at the same time as these grade criteria is not any teachers strives after. This can contribute to that the students possibly sheep hopes about a grade when one actually know that they can’t because of the language does not have possibility to achieve.

Avsikten med detta examensarbete är att få en uppfattning om hur elevers läsvanor på fritiden påverkar deras betyg, naturvetenskapliga begreppsförståelse och språkbehandling. En grupp om 75 elever i år 8 fick skriftligt redogöra för sina läsvanor och förmodade höstterminsbetyg i svenska samt i de naturvetenskapliga ämnena. De ombads även förklara några vetenskapliga begrepp och sätta de naturvetenskapliga ämnenas svårighetsgrad i förhållande till övriga ämnen i skolan samt gradera sitt intresse för de olika naturvetenskapliga ämnena. Undersökningen visar en varierande kvalitet beträffande elevernas skriftspråk utan egentlig koppling till läsvanor. En majoritet har svårt att förklara de angivna begreppen ens ur vardaglig synvinkel. De elever som inte läser alls eller endast seriemagasin har dock till övervägande delen svaga prestationer i undersökningen och låga betyg, medan kopplingen är tydlig mellan goda läsvanor och höga betyg. I fråga om begreppsförståelse och språkbehandling tycks det inte spela så stor roll om eleven läser ofta eller ibland. Den tyngst vägande förutsättningen verkar istället vara intresse. / The purpose of this diploma work is to investigate how leisure time reading habits of students affect their grades, understanding of concepts of science and language handling. A group of 75 pupils in the 8th grade gave written answers to questions about their reading habits and presumed autumn grades in the subjects Swedish and Science. They were also asked to explain some scientific concepts, compare the difficulty level of science to that of other school subjects and rate their interest in science The survey shows a variation in writing skills that has no actual connection to reading habits. The majority fails to explain the given concepts even from an everyday point of view. Students who don’t read at all or only read comic books achieves poor results in the survey as well as low grades and students who read every day achieves high grades. In the matter of understanding of concepts of science and language handling it doesn’t seem to matter whether a student is reading every day or more seldom. It appears that the most important factor in this case is the student’s interest in science.

A study was conducted among a sample of Korean American students to investigate the potential moderation of the risks related to English proficiency by the protection of school belonging. Perceived scholastic competence, self-reported school grades, and academic expectancies were used for dependent variables. It was hypothesized that students with higher sense of belonging would be less affected by English proficiency than their peers with lower sense of belonging. The risk of English proficiency was confirmed. However, school belonging did not have as much of an effect as expected and students with higher English proficiency seemed to gain more benefit from increased school belonging. This finding reminds educators of the pressing importance of English proficiency, and future research is suggested to investigate the unique effects of belonging among students of Korean, and perhaps other Asian, backgrounds.

The purpose of this study was to study the effects of goal setting on students in a developmental algebra course. This study examined the effects on test scores for students that were prescribed a test score goal, students that created their own test score goal, and then compared to a control group. Three classes of developmental algebra were chosen with a total of 25 participants with reported results. Results showed that students with a goal on a test did not score significantly better than students without a goal, but did score significantly better on a test after the goal than tests before the goal.

In this thesis, the results of a survey regarding grade progression between secondary and upper secondary school in a municipality in the north of Sweden serve as the starting point for a study of the experiences and expectations of a number of 16 year old girls who are in the first year of upper secondary school. The study is performed by means of focus group interviews with female pupils from the three largest upper secondary schools in said municipality in an attempt to gauge their experiences of grades, grade assessment, teacher practices and perceived differences in how boys and girls are treated. The results show that most of the girls are disappointed with upper secondary school so far. Many of them feel that secondary school was both more fun and more rewarding in a sense of learning. Their appreciation of how this more rewarding atmosphere affected their grades differed between the various groups. One group considered lower demands in upper secondary school to be a good thing since it made good grades easy to achieve, whereas one of the other two groups considered the lower demands to be demotivating at best.

Den Entreprenöriella Filosofin är en studie av ideologi, kunskapssyn, betydelse och tendens i de nya kunskapskriterierna i gymnasieämnet filosofi sett i ljuset av Gymnasieskola 2011 (GY11). Uppsatsen inleds med en kort presentation av ämnet för att sedan redogöra för olika lingvistiska och semantiska tolkningsmodeller hämtade hos filosofer som Saussure, Russell och Wittgenstein vilka kommer att användas i själva analysen av de nya kunskapskriterierna. I syfte att sätta in undersökningen i en historisk kontext ges även en presentation av olika epistemologiska skolor och hur synen på kunskap i skolan har skiftat genom åren. Den efterföljande komparativa läsningen av de nya kunskapskriterierna gentemot de gamla betygskriterierna, där en rad nyintroducerade begrepp såsom entreprenör och entreprenöriellt lärande dessutom tolkas utifrån sin nya kontext visar att det har skett en förskjutning av vilka förmågor eller kunskaper som nu skall bedömas i gymnasieämnet filosofi. Textanalysen visar även att det har skett en förskjutning vad gäller kunskapssyn mot ett mer instrumentellt förhållningssätt och att detta bygger på ideologisk tendens snarare än vetenskaplig övertygelse. / Den Entreprenöriella Filosofin (The Entrepreneurial Philosophy) is a study of ideology, epistemology, meaning and tendency in the new knowledge criteria in upper secondary school subject philosophy in light of Gymnasieskola 2011 (GY11). The thesis begins with a brief presentation of the subject and then describes different linguistic and semantic interpretation models retrieved by philosophers such as Saussure, Russell and Wittgenstein, which will be used in the analysis of the knowledge criteria. In order to put the study in a historical context a presentation of the different epistemological beliefs and how the view of knowledge in the Swedish school system has shifted over the years is given. The subsequent comparative reading of the new knowledge-based criteria against the old criteria’s, with a range of newly introduced concepts such as entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial learning is also interpreted from its new context, shows that there has been a shift in the skills or knowledge that will now be assessed in philosophy. Text analysis also shows that there has been a shift in terms of knowledge towards a more instrumental approach and that this is based on ideological tendency rather than scientific beliefs.

This C-essay is a qualitative study designed to create a basis for understanding how managers involved in school affairs perceive the impact of merit points on students’ chances to continue on to higher education and how this will affect individuals' life chances. The study is based on three interviews with managers involved in school affairs. In this paper grades, merit points and socioeconomic class differences are discussed. The aim of this paper is to answer the following questions:  What impact does merit points in language studies and the way different languages are valued, in the system, have for the individual and for society?  Who are the winners in the new grading system and who are the losers; how are different socioeconomic groups affected? The material was interpreted with the help of a report written by Ingrid Nordqvist and Monica Langerth Zetterman called "Secondary School competition field-a regional perspective", a paper written by Helen Raven who did a study on grades, national tests and social reproduction and the Frenchman Pierre Bourdieu's theories. The results show that class differences will increase and that it will be difficult to rise in the social hierarchy in the future.

This study was carried out in Ronneby municipality during May 2006. I chose to compare three senior schools with regards to the implementation of objective orientated directives based on the teachers understanding of the task, motivation, resources allocated and their significance for the disparity between boys’ and girls’ grades. I carried out nine in-depth interviews: three at each senior school. From the interviews it emerged that teachers perceive objectives differently from parents and students. Teachers claim that they understand the directives but say that they lack the resources. According to those interviewed, the disparity in grades between boys and girls is due to biological factors, class affiliation and group dynamics. None of those interviewed feel that they contribute to the difference in grades. This study should not be seen as a generalisation but rather as a preliminary study to further research within the topic area.