Two set of studies were conducted to better understand grades and grading practices in physics courses, and how these might influence demographic representational disparities in physics. The first study investigates the relationships between grades and the student-level factors of standardized test scores, (binary) gender, underrepresented minority (URM) status, first generation (FG) status, citizenship status, and age of over 20,000 students enrolled in algebra-based and calculus-based introductory physics courses. Consistent with other studies, we find differences in mean grades for all of these factors, except for gender, and when standardized test scores are included in a regression model predicting grades, the demographic differences in grades decreases, though typically remain non-zero. We also find gender by test score and URM by test score interactions when predicting grades. The second study examines grade component scores, and replicates the finding that compared to men, women achieve higher scores on non-exam components and lower scores on exam components. We also find that the gap in score between URM and FG students and their counterparts is less for non-exam components than for exam components. Because of these differentials in components, we compared different models of grade components weighting and find that women and URM students differentially benefit from stronger weighting of non-exam components. While the benefit to grades is relatively small, the relative shift in percentages of grade rates of A, D and F can have dramatic differential shifts. We also find that while exam components are moderately strongly correlated with standardized tests scores, non-exam components are not. These results suggest that altering grade component weights can change demographic disparities in grades and change the dependency of grades on standardized test scores. We conclude with a call for more attention to grading practices and what is rewarded in introductory physics courses.

中文翻译：

---

介绍性物理学中的年级，年级成分权重和人口统计学差异

进行了两套研究，以更好地理解物理课程中的成绩和评分方法，以及它们如何影响物理学中的人口统计学差异。第一项研究调查了年级与学生水平的因素之间的关系，这些因素包括标准化考试成绩，（二元）性别，代表性不足的少数族裔（URM）身份，第一代（FG）身份，公民身份以及年龄在20,000以上的代数学生基础和微积分基础物理学入门课程。与其他研究一致，我们发现所有这些因素的平均成绩差异（性别除外），并且当在预测成绩的回归模型中包含标准化考试成绩时，成绩的人口统计学差异会减小，尽管通常保持非零。在预测成绩时，我们还通过测验分数发现性别，并通过测验交互作用找到URM。第二项研究检查了年级成分分数，并重复了这一发现，即与男性相比，女性在非考试成分上得分较高，而在考试成分上得分较低。我们还发现，非考试组成部分的URM和FG学生之间的得分差距比考试组成部分的得分差距小。由于这些成分的差异，我们比较了年级成分权重的不同模型，发现女性和URM学生可以从非考试成分权重的提高中受益。虽然分数的收益相对较小，但A，D和F分数率百分比的相对变化会产生明显的差异变化。我们还发现，虽然考试内容与标准化考试成绩之间具有中等程度的相关性，但非考试内容却没有。这些结果表明，改变年级成分的权重可以改变年级的人口统计学差异，并改变年级对标准化考试分数的依赖性。最后，我们呼吁大家更多地关注评分实践以及物理入门课程中的奖励。