Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Zabelle Motte -
Number of replies: 12
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Hello,

I try to help teachers to configure gradebook to make it clear for students and I do not understand why weightings are presented as percentages is the student view.

I have the same question for the "contribution to course total" column, that is an other percentage that is not much more clear.

These two percentages seems to me to make the gradebook reading a puzzle.

There is perhaps something I miss but it seems to me the teacher view (without percents) is much more clear than the student view.

Thanks in advance for clarifications.

Kisses

Zabelle

In reply to Zabelle Motte

Re: Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Rick Jerz -
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I think that you could hide the percentage and weighting, if you prefer. I do this with a few other statistics to try to keep the grade book, as students see it, less overwhelming.
In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Nathan Lind -
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Good suggestion Rick. Might you have any CSS etc to share for reducing clutter in the students' view of the gradebook?
In reply to Nathan Lind

Re: Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Rick Jerz -
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Interesting question, Nathan. No, not specifically for your question. However, I do have some CSS that cleans up the grade book for a student when the teacher wants to have a "printed" report. It works in Moodle 3.11, but I haven't tried it in Moodle 4 yet. Is this of any interest to you?
In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Nathan Lind -
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Yes, Rick, that CSS would be most welcome. Thank you!
Nathan
In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Zabelle Motte -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
Thanks for answer Rick,

It is possible to completely hide the weighings in gradebok options, there is no need for css tweak to make it.
But I want the weighings to be shown to students, it is an important information for them to know for example that some activities are formative and have a 0 weighting.

But why to present weighings as percentages ? It is unclear.

Kisses,

Zabelle
In reply to Zabelle Motte

Re: Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Rick Jerz -
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I have seen some debate, maybe even a Tracker item, about whether weights should be shown as percentages. I am not an expert on this topic, but from my engineering background, when one is trying to show an "item's" contribution to a "total," then percentages are very useful. The analogy is a slice of pie, that the pie represents the entire item or 100%, and the slice might be 12.5%.

Below is a screenshot of one category in one of my courses, where I do show "calculated weights" to students. I can explain these weights to students, such as:

"Your 'Submit a photo' assignment is worth 3 points, or 16.7% of your grade within this category, Participation. You can see that all assignments within this category add up to 100%. Then, this category becomes 5% of your overall grade. You can model this in Excel if you wish, and you will see that your Excel calculation matches Moodle's."
 
 
Attachment Grade Category Example from Rick.jpg
In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Zabelle Motte -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

Thanks for answer Rick.
It would be interresting for me to have information about the way you configured weithings in teacher view.

In my gradebook, every certificative activity has wheighing 1 and the final wheightings in student view seems only convert the wheighing coefficient in percentage that is unclear.

Here is the teacher view of my gradebook :

teacher view on gradebook

And here is the student view of my gradebook :

student view on gradebook

It is unclear because all activities do not have the same notre range.

There is perhaps something I miss in the gradebook configuration but I do not see what.
Our Moodle is a 3.9.16 version.

Kisses,

Zabelle

In reply to Zabelle Motte

Re: Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Rick Jerz -
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My grade book (as I see it, screenshot below) is a bit different than yours.  Perhaps this is due to my "aggregation" methods.

For my course, I am using the "Natural" aggregation method.

I use the "Simple weighted mean of grades" aggregation method for most categories.  However, for the "Exams" category, I use the "Weighted mean of grades" because I want each exam to be equally weighted, regardless of how many questions each exam has. You can see that I do weight my categories (according to my syllabus).

 

 

Attachment Grade Book Example.jpg
In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Zabelle Motte -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
Thank for these screencaptures Rick.
I had a try and I think this configuration is much more clear.
But you disabled the activities weights.
I think it is a good way to configure the gradebook.

In reply to Zabelle Motte

Re: Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Emma Richardson -
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They are weighted equally because you have each activity weighted at one point. This overrides the grade amount. It does not matter if the activity has 100 points in the grade column - you have it set to only be worth one point in the weighting of things so that it is all it will be worth.
In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Weightings and contribution to course total are presented as percents is User Report. Why ?

by Zabelle Motte -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
Thanks for answer Emma.
I understand that the first column is the weithing coefficient but I find it totally unclear to present such an indicator as a percent.
It would be better for this coefficient to be an number as in teacher view.
We will have a discussion in our institution but the way to configure default gradebook.
I think the configuration Rick proposes is much more clear.