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.

L'évaluation et la notation des élèves font l'objet de débats actuels dans la communauté éducative (Rey & Feyfant, 2014). Les situations d’évaluation à l’école créent une « pression évaluative » et plusieurs ouvrages rapportent la tension et la peur que les élèves subissent. Les recherches sur le stress scolaire montrent que la détresse concernant les situations évaluatives est vue comme la première cause de l’anxiété et du stress à l’école. Outre les multiples problèmes de santé physique et mentale, ce stress peut produire un impact négatif sur les résultats scolaires.La question principale de notre recherche est : Est-ce que l’évaluation et la notation sont une source de stress chez les élèves et, si oui, perturbe-t-elle leur performance lors de la restitution des connaissances ? Nous avons conduit deux études expérimentales avec 126 élèves de collège en situation scolaire réelle, en faisant appel à des méthodes de la psychologie expérimentale et des neurosciences. Les résultats des deux expériences révèlent que lorsque les élèves de cette âge (11-12 ans) sont notés, ils subissent un stress important. Bien que ce stress n’altère pas la performance de façon majeure, il induit de moindres performances pour les objets les plus difficiles à catégoriser. Quand le temps de réponse est limité, les filles sont plus stressées par la notation que les garçons qui sont très stressés par le temps limité de réponse.Ces résultats posent une vraie question sur les finalités d’une évaluation des connaissances des élèves et jettent le doute sur ce qui est vraiment évalué : les connaissances acquises, ou les capacités des élèves à gérer le stress ? / The discussions on evaluation at school have been topical in the educational and academic community (Rey & Feyfant, 2014). Evaluating settings create a « test results pressure » and many studies report a constant fear which student feel in relation to such a pressure. Previous research reveals that assessments situations are the major source of school anxiety and stress in most western countries. Besides the important health and mental problem, ce stress may produce a negative effect on school results. The research question we try to find the answer is: if evaluations and assessments are a source of stress in young scholar students and if yes, in what way do they interfere with cognitive performance in situations of knowledge restitution.We conducted an experimental study in a real school context (n=126 students). We used the methodology and procedures of experimental psychology and neurosciences. The results of both experiments show that assessment situations are very stressful for the students of this age (11-12 y.o.). Even if the general performance was not much altered by the stress, the number of correct answers on very difficult pictures was inferior under stress. The girls were more stressed by the evaluating context, the boys were more affected by response time constraints. These results raise doubts as to whether an assessment context allows young school children to fully access to their personal resources and to show their real performance. One can doubt what is exactly assessed during evaluation: the true level of acquisition of school knowledge by students or, rather, their capacity to cope with stress induced by the evaluative pressure to perform well.

Undantagsbestämmelsen i Skollagen (2010), även kallad pysparagrafen, ger lärare möjlighet att undanta vissa delar av ett betygskriterium vid en betygssättning. Den ska tillämpas när en elev, trots stöd, inte kan uppnå ett mål i ämnet på grund av en funktionsnedsättning. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka lärares erfarenheter och uppfattningar om undantagsbestämmelsen. Min undersökningsfråga för min studie är följande:   -Vilka teman framträder ur intervju med lärarna gällande undantagsbestämmelsen i relation till bedömning och betygssättning av elevers kunskaper?   Jag genomförde en kvalitativ intervjustudie och sedan tolkades resultaten utifrån ett dilemmaperspektiv. Materialet har bearbetats och analyserats genom tematisk analys.  Resultaten visar att lärarna upplever undantagsbestämmelsen som nödvändig för att uppnå en likvärdig betygsättning. Intervjuerna visar att undantagsbestämmelsen är känd hos lärarna men de upplever att det inte är alltid den lättaste uppgiften att omsätta den i praktiken för att det är många faktorer som måste tas i beaktan.   Resultatet visar även att lärarna upplever undantagsbestämmelsen som otydlig, vilket ger ett stort tolkningsutrymme vid dess användning. Lärarna uttrycker att det är samtidigt en svårighet att avgöra vad en funktionsnedsättning är och bedöma vad det är i en elevs funktionsnedsättning som gör att eleven inte når målen i ett ämne. Resultatet visar på att lärarna är i behov av utbildning och fortbildning om både undantagsbestämmelsen och de olika funktionsnedsättningar som finns, för att tillämpa den på ett rättvist och korrekt sätt. Det framgår även i resultatet att det finns önskemål om att det ska vara ett krav på dokumentation vid tillämpningen av den, för att underlätta för elever i exempelvis stadieövergångar eller bytet av en lärare. / The exception provision in Swedish education law gives teachers the possibility to exempt certain parts of the assessment criteria when setting grades. It is used when a student, despite having received support, cannot reach a goal in the subject as a result of a functional impairment. The purpose of this paper is to investigate teachers’ experience and understanding of the exception provision. My study concerns the following research question:  Which themes arise from interviews with teachers regarding the relationship between the exception provision and the assessment and grading of students’ knowledge?  I performed a qualitative interview study and analyzed the results from a dilemma perspective. The material has been processed and analyzed through a thematical analysis.  The results show that teachers’ experience the exception provision as a necessary tool in achieving fair and equal grading. The interviews show that teachers know about the exception provision but that it is not always easy to use the provision in practice because there are many factors that must be considered at the same time.    The result also shows that teachers’ experience the provision as unclear, which leads to a broad interpretation of the provision when it is used. Teachers lift that it is both difficult to understand what is meant by functional impairment and difficult to assess how this functional impairment prevents the student from reaching the subject’s learning goals. The result shows that teachers need further education in both the exception provision and different functional impairments to apply the provision in the correct way. The results even show that there is a desire that documentation should be required when the provision is used to support handovers to new teachers and new grade levels.