Hitting for Average: Educational Assessment, Unidimensionality, and the Connection to Baseball Hitting Statistics - Article 3

Oct 15, 2026

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The traditional points system and subsequent Grade Point Average (GPA) in education perpetuate an evaluation of academic performance that reflects arbitrary weighting of assignments and assessments. In contrast, baseball batting average and slugging percentage serve as established performance metrics that better reflect unidimensionality. This paper analyzes and discusses how unidimensionality can become more prevalent in educational assessments, particularly in relation to traditional points systems and GPA.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Baseball Hitting Statistics and Validity

Batting Average as a Metric for Assessing Players

Connection to Educational Assessment and GPA

Traditional Points System and Unidimensionality

Educational Considerations | Volume 49 Number 3 | Article 3 | | --- | --- | | 2024
Hitting for Average: Educational Assessment, Unidimensionality, and the Connection to Baseball Hitting Statistics
Alex Romagnoli
Monmouth University, [aromagno@monmouth.edu](aromagno@monmouth.edu)
Follow this and additional works at: [https://newprairiepress.org/edconsiderations](https://newprairiepress.org/edconsiderations)
Part of the Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, and the Other Education Commons

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. | | Recommended Citation Romagnoli, Alex (2024) "Hitting for Average: Educational Assessment, Unidimensionality, and the Connection to Baseball Hitting Statistics," Educational Considerations: Vol. 49: No. 3. [https://doi.org/](https://doi.org/)[ ](https://doi.org/)10.4148/0146-9282.2386 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Educational Considerations by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please [contact](contact cads@k-state.edu)[ cads@k-state.edu](contact cads@k-state.edu). Hitting for Average: Educational Assessment, Unidimensionality, and the Connection to Baseball Hitting Statistics Alex Romagnoli Abstract The traditional points system and subsequent Grade Point Average (GPA) in education perpetuates an evaluation of academic performance which reflects arbitrary weighting of assignments and/or assessments. As such, GPAs which are calculated using a traditional points system are not unidimensional in their design. The baseball batting and slugging percentage, which serves as established metrics for performance evaluations among baseball players, better reflects unidimensionality. In essence, this paper puts forth an analysis and discussion which posits that baseball batting average and slugging percentage can serve as an example for how unidimensionality can become more prevalent in educational assessments, especially as it relates to the traditional points system and GPA. Keywords: assessment, unidimensionality, baseball, Grade Point Average (GPA), education Introduction Teachers across disparate subject areas and through various grade levels consistently employ an assessment practice which is referred to as the traditional points system (Marzano, 2006) . Utilizing the traditional points system on assessments is also used to calculate a final Grade Point Average (GPA) at the end of a given marking period and is a sum of the total points received divided by the total possible points. This common practice among teachers, while sensible upon initial consideration, can be an incomplete method to assess student understanding due to difficulty in weighting diverse assessments while maintaining alignment with standards (Brookhart and Nitko, 2019). Examining this style of assessment through the lens of baseball hitting statistics provides insight into both the pitfalls of said assessment style and a way to explore alternatives. Baseball has utilized statistics as a way to assess player effectiveness and provide needed contextualization since the sport’s beginnings in the mid-19th century (Tygiel, 2000) . Popular among those statistics is batting average, which is used to assess the production of a hitter. While batting average is a common and oft-cited metric for assessing players, its validity has come under scrutiny (James, 2003; Kenny 2016; Law, 2017). Batting average’s calculation of hits/at bats is similar to the traditional points system in educational assessment as it is a statistic which weighs all hits the same. This paper highlights the connection between educational assessment—mainly the traditional points system and subsequent GPA—and baseball hitting statistics. Batting average and the traditional points

FAQs

Why does the traditional points system and GPA raise unidimensionality concerns?

GPAs derived from a traditional points system can reflect arbitrary weighting across assignments and assessments, which means the resulting measure is not unidimensional by design.

How do baseball batting average and slugging percentage relate to unidimensionality?

These baseball metrics are presented as established performance measures that better reflect unidimensionality compared with traditional educational points-based evaluation.

What is the paper’s main purpose regarding educational assessment alternatives?

It defines and examines batting average and the traditional points system, then proposes an alternative perspective by connecting standards-based assessment with baseball’s slugging percentage.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by acoobca