Assistant Professor of Economics Daniel Savelle '13, Ph.D., and Associate Director of Institutional Effectiveness Mai Savelle, M.Ed., published an article titled, "More than just a weighted average: Economic statistics with auto specs grading" in the International Review of Economics Education's December 2025 issue.
In their article, the authors describe a novel grading structure that utilizes automatically-graded, pass/fail quizzes for a series of course modules that collectively determine a student's final grade. The "auto specs" grading system allows students to learn at their own pace (asynchronously) with the immediate ability to see their grades and progress accordingly. This provides a significant incentive for learning and course completion.
There are a variety of alternative grading systems to the traditional weighted average approach. The authors propose a grading framework that has been used successfully in other disciplines for economics courses. "Hopefully this will help others as they decide what grading structure works best for them," said Mai Savelle.
