Reframing How Grading Affects and Shapes Students’ Self-Worth in Christian Higher Education

Abstract Academic achievement has too often been a metric by which students define their self-worth. For some students, this focus manifests itself through perfectionism, attaining high grades, and overvaluing extrinsic learning rewards. Students who consider their self-worth to be contingent upon their academic performance often suffer from withdrawal, stress, depression, and anxiety. The external and internal pressures placed upon students regarding academic achievement can be devastating. Recent criticisms of grading, its efficacy, and inconsistencies might lead postsecondary educators to reconsider how they assess and communicate competency to their students. Christian institutions of higher education in particular have unique opportunities to speak to students’ perceptions of their identity in ways that reframe the impacts and effects of grading on personal well-being and sense of self-worth. This article serves as a call to action for Christian universities to instill a more robust understanding of Christian identity and the imago Dei concerning how and where students find their self-worth—in whom they find their worth, rather than in what.