http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/02/AR2005060201593_pf.html article from the Washington Post that deals with grade inflation and grade-grubbing at the college level. Pretty interesting. Or irritating, depending on your perspective.
Dr. Wankler: Thanks (I mean this seriously)... good find on grading... I read the Post article... I'll positive rep you when I can!!! Grading should be more seriously approached and honestly applied for all students in my opinion!
Great article. In an odd way, it is comforting to read that the problem isn't just at out of the way places like my own University of Idaho. Comforting in the way that seeing children of other parents act up in public - it isn't just you and your child after all. But the problem is still there. Our Faculty Senate just approved adding + and - grades to the A-F system (no A+ and no D-). Students are distressed over the impact on their GPAs. I am thrilled to have more options. I state up front that they are welcome to challenge individual assignment grades or test scores. The caveats: they must wait 24 hours from receipt of grade (the cooling off period!), they must directly address my comments as to how the score was arrived at, and they must be prepared for me to revise their grade down if I find additional mistakes or decide things were too lenient. That said, students who challenge usually get a few extra points, especially since this rarely results in any true change in score.
I have pretty much the same guidelines, but I make them put their challenge to the substance of my comments in writing. I think I've had about 3 grade challenges since enacting this policy. It's certainly cut out the 'I worked really hard' grade complaints, which are the worst to deal with IMO because you're put in the position of saying 'Your hard work didn't pay off.'
I attended American University (the school described in the piece) and can say without hesitation that the grade I received (a 3.32, enough for the lowest end of the University Honors system) was underserved. It is nearly impossible to fail a course there, for one thing - I probably deserved to fail a science course (got a C), and deserved no higher than a C in an honors philosophy course (I got a B). I rarely participated, mainly due to my frustration with the idiots that *did* participate. And while my writing skills are solid, I can't believe that they were as good, or that I tried as hard, as my in-major GPA would have suggested (3.5? 3.7? I forget). RS
You're welcome. The 24-hour rule is the best advice I ever received. You wind up dealing with fewer students as a result, and those you do deal with have usually taken the time to make a case based on what they've actually written (that's the other rule I add: we will discuss the paper and my comments/markings first, from beginning to end, before we start talking about a grade) instead of the grade they wish they received. I got my evaluations from a really bad class I taught last fall (at the end of the spring term, I learned that 19 of the 32 students were on some form of academic probation). I quit reading the evaluations (the first time ever) before I even got to the comments because of what I found on the cover sheet: to the question "what grade do you expect to receive for this course?" 17 people said "A." I think four people got A's for the course. I'm not even sure I gave out a total of 17 A's on individual assignments throughout the term. Yet 17 people said they thought they were going to get an A. It's a miracle no one complained, though I clearly wasn't alone in giving these people lower grades than they expected, given how many of them turned up at meetings of the committee that determines academic probation cases.
On an unrelated point, I HATE that grading scale. Thanks for that "no D-" - really helps me out. I set the curve in my core major classes, and got the same grade as anyone who got a 93.5%, which always annoyed me. As did some "B-"s I got in my science classes because I was lazy and didn't give a ******** about them. I don't mind pluses and minuses, but I fail to see why a 93.5 should be rewarded the same way as a 98.5%. They aren't for Bs and Cs.
Nice article. It reminds me of this Doonesbury comic strip where the Dean is being cross examined in court about grade inflation. When he is asked why the entire class graduated magna cum laude he replies, "It was a good crop dammit!"
I've never fought a grade in my life, but I'm going to college next year and expecting to get a really high GPA (I'm talking something around a 3.5). Maybe I'm only expecting that because I'm going to a school that was a safety for me that gave me a scholarship, that has no +/- grading scale, and has an average GPA above a 3.1, but nevertheless, I'm still expecting it. The whole grade expectation thing has a lot to do with the school you go to, at schools that are known for not grade inflating, incoming students aren't going to expect the highest grades (most likely, I know I wouldn't), but I'm going to a school that does grade inflate and I'm going to be disapointed if I don't pull a really high GPA (granted, I'm going to work hard to get it, but hell, even on the tour the school made it look like it was easy to do well.)
Our change refers to the computation of your GPA. Your school uses a 0-100 GPA? Now, an A = 4.0 grade points per credit. An A- will = 3.7 grade points per credit. A B+ will = 3.3 grade points per credit. A B will equal 3 grade points per credit. Until now, 3.0 and 4.0 grade points were the only option, so an 80% earned the same as an 89%. Instructors still select what % on a 0-100 scale equates to a particular grade. I assume this is obvious, but if your school really does use a 0-100 scale, I would like to know how it works.
When I grade assignments, I tend to agonize about whether a student should get B or a B+, so I can barely imagine a system in which there aren't any pluses or minuses available to graders. Aside from the fact that miniscule differences in performance (or small inconsistencies in grading) might end up having a significant impact on GPA in such a system, there's also the problem that there's no way of distinguishing between a strong B and a weak B, so students at very different levels may end up getting the same grade. In fact, a better system would be just to compute GPA on a 100 point scale. Most classes already begin with a 1-100 scale before the grades are converted into letters, so why bother with the letters and their cutoff points at all? Forcing grades into a small number of categories serves no useful purpose, as far as I can tell - and on the negative side, it adds an arbitrary element to the process, and obscures differences in student performance. It also causes unecessary stress, both for the graders and for students who find themselves right on the borderline between two grades.
Yes. Your grades are averaged every semester, down to the fourth decimal place from 0-100 (five points are added for an honors class, 8 for an AP). Students are ranked based on their average GPA, with the valedictorian usually earning somewhere around a 101 average.
Thanks. I'd be interested to know how many colleges and universities use this method, and how easily it is handled by graduate schools. One school in my home state in Washington, Evergreen State, actually does without grades of any sort. You pass or you don't. Admission to graduate school isn't necessarily affected, but teaching and research assistantships are. One thing I wouldn't want to do is award extra GPA points for an honors class. Those tend to be my highest average grade classes - an A is enough. 100% should be the most points possible.
Grade inflation and/or academic laziness is a problem the history department at my alma mater (somewhat) addressed while I was there (probably as much as they could without all losing their jobs.) They decided that too many people that didn't know jacksquat were receiving diplomas. So, they tightened up one requiste course for the degree that would really weed out those looking for an easy ride to a diploma. I saw many people drop out (or kicked out) of the program based on that one course. The course grade was A, B, C or F. You had three shots to get a "C" and if you couldn't get one, you had to switch majors. When I took the course, it was open to 18 people. The first week was so hard, six dropped out. Of those that remained, two got an "A", two got a "B", two got a "C" and six got an "F." I know at least one of the "F" students from the time took the course twice more and received an "F" both times and had to change majors. I don't know what happened to the other five in the end, but I remember how pissed off they all were to get an "F" for that course.
Yep. That's obnoxious. The high school I went to didn't award extra GPA points for AP and/or honors classes. 4.0 was the maximum. I didn't get anything extra for taking calculus and other such courses. I found out recently, however, that they've since changed that and you have kids graduating with a 4.6 on a 4.0 scale.
If I had to grade on a point scale, I'd end up either just guessing at numbers or just computing the numerical percentage of a letter grade. When I read an essay, I know if it's a B+ or an A-, but I sure as hell don't know if it's a 88 or an 89. For me, letter grades with plusses and minuses give enough range to create useful divisions. A 100 point scale seems like overkill. I can see its usefulness in something like math or statistics, but in writing based classes, no way.
That point scale helps some students, but it also opens up the process to even more bizarre grade grubbing. Like "Mike got an 84 and I got an 82. What's the difference?" Whereas it's usually not hard to point to something specific that distinguishes a B from a B-. My favorite complaint along these lines came in my second year of teaching. A student got a C- or D+ on a paper because it was too short and didn't really say anything. But I only marked 15 grammar/mechanical/spelling mistakes (quite a few for a two or so page paper). Her argument: it should be a B. Why? 100-15 = 85, which is a B. At least, that's what her older brother, who's a marketing major, told her. I was nicely explaining the process to her when my office mate was suddenly possessed by the spirt of comic Sam Kinnison, allowing him to make the same points much more succinctly than I was. I find it useful, personally, to avoid using "+" or "-" on the first couple of papers, then breaking them out later when the students are, hopefully, better able to appreciate the distinctions. From about mid-semester on, I'll occasionally give split grades (B/C) for a good paper that's marred by one recurring problem like vague pronoun references or too many proof-reading errors, etc. Then I explain that, if avoids ALL the mistakes made by this one, the higher grade will be recorded, but if the same mistakes still occur, then the lower one goes down as the grade of record. It tends to work well if I don't over-use it, especially if there's only one specific problem the student needs to address
I try to avoid B+ as much as I can, because that single grade probably makes up 75% of the grade grubbing attempts I've had. They think they're so close to the A-, when in fact they're usually just hovering barely above the B. The C+ people usually don't care enough. And I don't think I've ever given a D+. That's like complimenting a dead guy on his nice suit.
Maybe we need just one more designation: Keep B and B+, then add ">B, but just barely, so keep your friggin mouth shut, you little whiner." I'd be willing to trade in my rarely-used D- for that one. But seriously, you're dead-on right about the B+ being an invitation to a grade-grub.
In English, for say, a paper, our teacher outlines a rubric, and just gives a 95 for an "A," 85 for a "B," and so on. Sometimes, she'll do the equivalent of say, a "B+" and give you an 88. However, it really helps in Math, because each answer is right or wrong, so each question has a point value, and however many you get wrong, multiply it by the point value, subtract it from 100, and you have a score.
Why do you think awarding "extra points" for a class that is higher level than standard HS not appropriate? In most cases, this is college level work and fulfills college requirements as well as HS. IMO, if the class you elect to take to fulfill HS requirement also fulfills college, that should be recognized in your transcript.
Why should you benefit in both places for doing one thing? If you're getting college credit for it, that's the reward, not extra points on your high school transcript. Maybe I'm just an old school geezer (at 29), but I don't see a problem with everything being worth a maximum of four. When university admissions is reviewing a transcript, they'll see that you took calculus and the other guy took business math, the "bonus points" are pointless. The fact that you put in more effort is revealed in a myriad of ways, so why do you need something else? I think back to teachers that routinely gave "bonus work/points" and remembered I had a semester average of something ridiculous like 109 in geometry and 104 in Algebra II. I don't see it as any different than that. It's just another way to pump up kids' grades.
In theory, your grade would suffer if you took a higher level course, so the points are put in as a safety net. If you didn't have the extra points, students wouldn't want to take high level courses, as it would have an adverse effect on their GPA. In effect, the addition of points encourages students to challenge themselves.
That's questionable thinking in my opinion. Don't challenge yourself because you might not succeed? Let's all walk through life with big fluffy pillows strapped all over ourselves to soften the stumbles. To me, "extra credit" (which is what this is) is no different than sports leagues that don't keep score. My high school offered things like physics and anatomy (complete with trips to see cadaver dissection at med schools), but those aren't AP courses. Most kids could coast through high school taking earth science, biology and chemistry. Should the kids that took physics and anatomy get higher grades for challenging themselves even though they aren't AP courses?