Semester of Graduation
Spring 2026
Degree Type
Dissertation/Thesis
Degree Name
Secondary and Middle Grades Education, Doctorate
Department
Education
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Wendy Sanchez
Second Advisor
Belinda Edwards
Third Advisor
Brian Lawler
Abstract
Traditional grading systems in secondary schools often conflate behavior with achievement, obscure evidence of understanding, and constrain teachers’ ability to enact learning-centered beliefs. This qualitative case study examined how five experienced secondary mathematics teachers in a public high school geometry department experienced and interpreted a grassroots transition to standards-based grading (SBG) within collaborative professional learning communities (PLCs). Guided by a pragmatic and constructivist worldview, data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus groups, field observations, and questionnaires and analyzed using iterative open and axial coding with cross-group pattern analysis. Findings indicated that SBG did not fundamentally alter teachers’ beliefs about learning; rather, it enabled them to enact preexisting moral commitments to fairness, growth, and equity. Teachers reconstructed grading as an interpretive practice grounded in evidence of student understanding, while navigating sustained uncertainty related to motivation, reassessment, and accountability pressures. PLC collaboration functioned as social and emotional infrastructure, strengthening collective teacher efficacy and sustaining reform. The study concludes that grading reform is less a technical adjustment than a process of moral enactment, identity reconstruction, and collective meaning-making, with implications for leadership structures, accountability systems, and professional learning design in secondary mathematics education.
Comments
additional layout revisions made