Dropping the lowest grade from a Moodle Gradebook category

When a Gradebook category contains several equally weighted activities, excluding one or more of each student’s lowest results when calculating the total category grade can be a beneficial strategy. Potential use cases include:

• weekly quizzes
• in-class tasks
• any other series of repeated tasks of equal weighting

For example, if one assessment item consists of 13 weekly quizzes and the lowest score is dropped, each student’s overall result for that assessment is calculated using the best 12 quiz scores of the 13 they obtained.

Why?

The practice of omitting students’ lowest grade(s) from a series of activities within a broader assessment is a great way to support student learning and growth in their studies. It acknowledges that students can have ‘off days’ due to unforeseen circumstances, and accounts for occasional poor performance which isn't indicative of a student’s true abilities and understanding.

Enabling this flexibility can reassure students that struggling with a particular quiz or assignment component won't disproportionately affect their overall grade, reducing stress while better reflecting their achievements. It provides students with further opportunities to demonstrate understanding of the course material (Hadsell & MacDermott, 2010), without necessarily affecting overall subject outcomes (Duke Learning Innovation, 2022). Additionally, dropping the lowest grade may reduce the need for academic consideration applications.

How?

The Moodle Gradebook can automatically exclude the lowest results(s) when calculating students’ final grade for an assessment. These settings need to be applied to a Gradebook category, not to individual Gradebook items.

To access the Gradebook once the category has been created:

1. Select Grades from the Site settings menu.
   
2. Select Gradebook setup from the Gradebook navigation dropdown menu.
   
3. Select Edit category from the dropdown menu in the Actions column. 
   
4. An Edit category pop-up window will appear. 
   
5. Disable the Exclude empty grades toggle.
   
   Note: An empty grade in the Gradebook is treated as 0 for all activities until a mark is entered. When dropping the lowest grade(s) from a Grade category, it is recommended to disable the Exclude empty grades setting so empty grades are automatically included in the Grade category calculation. This removes the need for educators to manually enter a mark of 0 once the due date has passed and a non-attempt is confirmed, ensuring the empty grade is included in the calculation and the total number of activities in the category isn't artificially reduced, skewing overall results. 
6. Enter the number of lowest grades you want to exclude in the Drop the lowest text box. For reference, in a category with five activities, entering 1 will calculate the best four out of five scores, while entering 2 calculates the best three out of five. 
   
7. Click the Save button.

The Gradebook category will now automatically exclude the lowest number of grades you have specified. 

References