Hi Rick,
The typical response is that somewhere between 10-20 in a class of 60 ask for the 24-hr extension. So, it's a nice level where I functionally don't know who asks for it, but it's also not the entire class. Hence my question of wanting to be able to note these during blind mode, because otherwise I have to grade, then unblind, then adjust grades based on who was actually late vs. not.
Re: "why worry about blind grading," I do it because I am a human. Like all humans, I'm certainly not unbiased. I use blind grading because there is strong evidence that professors are subject to the exact same biases everyone else is. We know, for instance, that professors use significantly fewer superlatives in describing female students than male ones (Schmader et al, 2007). Meta reviews show that bias affects all level of grading, including university and collegiate, and that professors and instructors take into account much information other than the quality of the work in their grades assigned (Malouff & Thorsteinsson, 2016). And, we also know - to my specific feature request about keeping assignments blinded throughout the term - that performance on one assignment statistically affects our grading of the student's other subsequent assignments, which is known as the "halo effect" (Malouff et al, 2013).
The reason to use blind grading consistently is that our grading biases can creep in via many different pathways. In your classes summing to 125 or my class of 60, it's not that bias only occurs if you know everyone's assignment... even if you just remember that one keen, engaged, high-performing student's topic, you're likely to subconsciously grade them higher because of the halo effect.
I do use rubrics, by the way. However, the problem with bias is that it affects /how/ we use the rubric... that we don't use it consistently from student to student.
Of course, as I mentioned earlier, there's a challenge: despite the strong body of literature demonstrating the vital importance of blind grading in all assignments by all instructors, personalized mentorship is just as important (e.g., feedback on topics, etc). This is where trying to explicitly fight to control biases comes in (acknowledging each of our limitations as a human, rather than claiming false objectivity), as well as trying to get participation up to such a point where I can overload my memory and try to avoid remembering their topics.
Because you asked, they're submitting essays in this course on cognitive science. But I also do it in my ethics class and research methods class too - all three being places where "walking the walk" of being fair and empirically informed in my pedagogical methods is important.
Hence my feature request.
Best,
Eric
Works Cited:
Malouff, J. M., Emmerton, A. J., & Schutte, N. S. (2013). The risk of a halo bias as a reason to keep students anonymous during grading. Teaching of Psychology, 40(3), 233-237.
Malouff, J. M., & Thorsteinsson, E. B. (2016). Bias in grading: A meta-analysis of experimental research findings. Australian Journal of Education, 60(3), 245-256.
Schmader, T., Whitehead, J., & Wysocki, V. H. (2007). A linguistic comparison of letters of recommendation for male and female chemistry and biochemistry job applicants. Sex roles, 57(7-8), 509-514.
