Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Are You Surprised? I'm Not.

For all I know I'm just as guilty as anyone else, but at least I don't "round up" grades at the end of the semester just so a kid can get a higher grade:
The average college student’s GPA rose from 2.52 in the 1950s to 3.11 in 2006. At many universities, the most common grade is an ‘A.’

These and other statistics show that American four-year educational institutions have massively shifted their grading systems to award ‘A’ and ‘B’ grades to most students, according to USA Today.

Is it a problem if the average college student receives above average grades? Stuart Rojstaczer, a former Duke University professor who studies grade inflation, thinks so.

“In a fair grading system, you reward people for their outstanding achievements,” said Rojstaczer. Grade inflation “lowers the intensity and intellectual level in many classes.”

Of course, grade inflation is not even across the board. Elite and private universities inflate more heavily, while community colleges give comparatively honest grades and even flunk students. Yale University, for instance, gave an ‘A’ grade 62 percent of the time last year.
Lake Wobegon.


PeggyU said...

My son could tell you that his calculus teacher is brutally honest!

maxutils said...
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Joshua Sasmor said...

Several years ago, our university did a study on grade inflation.Each class was a single data point, represented by it's average grade. After a bit of analysis, it was determined that the lowest grades came from courses in the math and science classes. The final determination was that the _least_ grade inflation occurred in the math courses :) There were several confounding factors - fewer students, higher course levels, and summer courses were all positively correlated with higher grades.