The study found significant differences in grading policies that guide how teachers constructed grades. In Canada, when school teachers grade students, they seek to primarily capture achievement of curriculum content based on the grading policy. By contrast, in Chinese schools, teachers’ grades consider both achievement of content and the learners’ personal dispositions and acquired skills.

These processes would be less efficient and more costly than the processes currently in place, but would enable more valid and fair decisions about student admission to Canadian universities.