Teaching resources

Grades or competency-based assessment? You can have both

Published June 12, 2026 · Lire en français

In short — Grades versus competency-based assessment is usually framed as a duel; it rarely is one. A grade summarizes and locates; criteria describe what's mastered and what still needs work. Each does the other's job badly. The way out: a weighted rubric whose criteria produce the grade, plus qualitative observations that feed your written comments. This article looks at what each approach brings, where each one breaks down, and a concrete way to make them work together — in oral and written assessment alike.

A duel that isn't one

In one corner, the grade: "reductive, anxiety-inducing, nobody knows what it measures." In the other, competency-based assessment — also known as standards-based grading: "a box-ticking factory, jargon-laden, unreadable for families." Both corners have their arguments, and in the staff room the debate can outlast the coffee machine.

The problem is that this debate compares two things that don't do the same job. A grade is a tool of synthesis: it condenses a performance into a value that can be communicated, averaged, compared. Criterion-based assessment is a tool of description: it says where the student stands, point by point. Asking a grade to describe, or competencies to summarize, is blaming a thermometer for not giving you the week's forecast. The real question isn't "which one should I pick?" but "how do I make them work together?"

What a grade tells you — and what it flattens

Let's be fair about its strengths: a B, or a 14 out of 20, locates instantly. The student knows where they stand against the standard and — like it or not — against the others. A grade averages over a term, exports into a report card, gets read in two seconds by a family, a staff meeting, an admissions platform. That readability is no small thing: it's why grades have survived every reform thrown at them.

But that strength is exactly its weakness. By condensing, the grade flattens the detail. Two students can earn the same B on a presentation for opposite reasons: Lina knows her topic cold but speaks into her notes, inaudible at the back of the room; Max holds the audience but skims the surface of the content. Same grade, opposite diagnoses, opposite next steps — and the B says nothing about it. Worse: three weeks later, the student remembers "I got a B" and forgets why. A grade alone tells you about position, and almost nothing about progress.

What criteria add — and where it breaks down

Assessing by criteria or competencies means splitting the judgment: instead of one overall impression, you look separately at command of the topic, structure, oral delivery, time management… Three concrete benefits:

• Readability for the student. "You've mastered the content; what we're working on is projecting your voice" is actionable information; "B" isn't. The student knows what to do with the assessment.
• Visible progress. Criterion by criterion, from one assessment to the next, you see what's climbing and what's stalling — even when the overall grade barely moves. For a struggling student, watching one criterion turn green is often more motivating than half a point gained.
• A fairer judgment. Scoring each dimension in its own box limits the halo effect — confidence bleeding into your reading of the substance. We cover this in detail in our article on grading bias in oral assessment.

Where does it break down? When the apparatus gets heavier than the teaching. A framework of forty sub-items to tick for every student, labels nobody understands without a glossary, hours of data entry for a result families never read: theoretical precision kills the actual quality of observation. An assessment setup is only worth what it's worth on a Tuesday in November, with 28 students. Four to six well-chosen criteria, phrased in plain classroom language, beat any cathedral of sub-competencies filled in carelessly.

The combination: a rubric that produces the grade

The practical synthesis fits in one sentence: make the criteria the source of the grade, not its rival. Concretely:

• A rubric of criteria with a weighted point scale. Content out of 8, structure out of 6, delivery out of 6: the weighting is a teaching decision, made before the assessment and announced to students. It states what counts, and how much. (For the building itself, see how to create a grading rubric.)
• You score the boxes; the grade flows from the boxes. Never the other way around — deciding "this is a B" and then distributing the B across the rubric keeps all the flaws of the overall impression, with an added illusion of rigor.
• Qualitative observations alongside the points. Not everything fits in a number: a brilliant rephrasing, a moment of losing the thread, a sharp answer to a tough question. Those traces feed your written comments and the conversation with the student — which is where feedback that actually helps students progress happens.

The result: the report card gets its grade, the student gets a diagnosis, and the two tell the same story instead of living in parallel.

A concrete oral example

A ten-minute presentation in a high-school class. Rubric: content (8 pts), structure (4 pts), oral delivery (4 pts), answers to questions (4 pts). During the performance, the teacher captures what they observe: a plus on "very clear transition between parts," a minus on "reading from notes from minute six onward." Afterward, each criterion gets its score — 6/8, 3/4, 2/4, 3/4 — and the grade falls out: 14/20. Lina and Max can land on the same total with opposite profiles: this time the rubric shows it, and the written comment practically writes itself from the pluses and minuses.

A concrete written example

An essay in middle school. Same logic: relevance of ideas (8 pts), organization (6 pts), language (6 pts). While marking, you score criterion by criterion and jot one precise fact per paper ("the conclusion genuinely answers the question," "subject-verb agreement needs work"). The grade feeds the average; the detail feeds the follow-up lesson — where you can group students by weak criterion rather than by grade, which is far more useful.

So where does SnapJury fit in?

This combination is exactly what SnapJury equips. You build your rubrics of criteria with a weighted point scale; during the assessment, you score each criterion — half-points included, for the in-between cases — and the overall grade flows from the rubric. In an oral, qualitative plus and minus marks are captured with a single tap, without taking your eyes off the student, and document the performance alongside the points. And the student record keeps the criterion-by-criterion history from one assessment to the next: you can watch voice projection improve over the term even when the average barely moves. The app decides nothing for you: the rubric, the weighting and the grade remain yours — it just keeps the books and keeps the trace.

Wrap-up

Grades and competency-based assessment aren't two camps; they're two floors of the same building: criteria describe, the grade summarizes. A weighted rubric that produces the grade gives you both for the price of one — provided you stay sober (few criteria, well phrased) and score the boxes before the total, never the reverse. The duel can rage on in the staff room; in the classroom, the two are on the same team.

Frequently asked questions

Does competency-based assessment replace grades?

No — they do different jobs. A grade summarizes and locates: a readable position that can be averaged, reported and compared. Criterion- or competency-based assessment describes: what's mastered, what still needs work. Most school contexts require both, and nothing stops a rubric from producing the grade — then you keep the summary AND the detail.

How do you turn a rubric into a grade?

By owning a weighting: each criterion gets a point value (say content out of 8, structure out of 6, delivery out of 6), you score each criterion separately, and the sum makes the grade. The weighting is a teaching decision to make before the assessment, not a back-fill calculation afterward. Announced to students, it states plainly what counts.

What are the pitfalls of competency-based assessment?

The main one is heaviness: an overly fine-grained framework with dozens of boxes to tick per student becomes unworkable day to day, and the quality of observation collapses. A few well-chosen criteria (4 to 6), phrased in plain classroom language and tracked over time, beat a cathedral of sub-competencies filled in carelessly.

How does SnapJury combine grades and criteria?

In SnapJury you build a rubric of criteria with a weighted point scale: you score each criterion (half-points included) and the overall grade flows from the rubric. During an oral you also capture qualitative plus and minus marks that document the performance alongside the grade. And the student record keeps a criterion-by-criterion history across assessments. The grade stays the teacher's.