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Abstract

Alternative grading (AG) is increasingly being implemented in higher education (Butler, 2025). However, instructor motivations and experiences with AG have yet to be fully understood (Hackerson et al., 2024). Existing research on AG has been inconsistent and fragmented, often focusing on individual course implementations without broader applicability and theoretical grounding. To move the field forward, it is essential to understand the perspectives of instructors who implement AG—how they adopt these practices, what motivates them, and what challenges they encounter. This study aims to provide a broader, more transferable understanding of AG by examining these experiences. By centering instructor voices, this work offers insights that may support others considering AG and help reorient future research toward generating empirical evidence, strong theoretical underpinnings, and broader adoption. Using a phenomenographic approach, this study explores the experiences of higher education instructors who have implemented AG through semi-structured interviews, a short survey, and course syllabus analysis. Participants use diverse AG methods, often mixing and adapting systems and practices to suit their course contexts. The results highlight a range of AG systems, motivations and perceived benefits and challenges. Their motivations were primarily driven by dissatisfaction with traditional grading and a desire to focus more on student learning, reflection, and inclusivity. The perceived benefits and challenges organized around five key areas: institutional climate, administrative buy-in, course logistics for instructors, instructor workload, and pedagogical implications for students. These findings offer a more comprehensive view of AG in practice and provide a foundation for making AG more accessible to other instructors. By synthesizing the perspectives of instructors across diverse contexts, this study contributes to a more coherent understanding of the structural and pedagogical conditions under which AG practices can be effectively implemented and sustained. Ultimately, these insights may inform institutional policies on grade submission, faculty development initiatives, and future empirical research that seeks to evaluate AG not only as a pedagogical innovation, but as a systemic intervention capable of reshaping assessment culture in higher education.