Anonymous grading in Turnitin
Did you know that you can grade Turnitin assignments anonymously? It’s easy to use, and by using it, you practically eliminate any personal bias that may occur during subjective grading of students’ work.
As teachers, we strive to be as fair as we can when grading students’ work. Experience bias, an effect that influences our behaviour based on our interaction with students, and physical bias, an effect that makes us favour or discriminate against someone based on some physical trait of theirs, are effects many of us are aware of. Already this awareness helps us mitigate bias during grading. In their study, Malouff and Thorsteinsson (2016) show that bias can occur during subjective grading because of irrelevant information we may have about students. An effective way to significantly reduce and even remove this bias altogether is to use anonymous grading.
You can grade students’ work by hiding their names in a Turnitin assignment by turning on Anonymous marking. Do this either when creating the activity or after it has been created but before any submissions have been made. Additionally, instruct students not to put their name or student number in their submitted work to maintain anonymity. The students’ names are revealed after the Post date has passed. See here for the details of setting up Anonymous marking in Turnitin.
John M. Malouff and Einar B. Thorsteinsson, “Bias in grading: A meta-analysis of experimental research findings,” Australian Journal of Education, Volume 60, Issue 3, pp. 245–256, August 2016. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944116664618.
