Friday, July 22, 2005

Grade Inflation

Does it ever bother you when you do all the work for a particular class and the person right next to you, who did as much work as the moss growing on a rock, gets as good a grade as you do?

Well, sometimes it happens. That's upsetting, isn't it?

What does this say to hard working individuals who read every chapter in the book and make flashcards, charts and other learning tools to better understand the material?

Classes may never have "fair" grading systems that are able to judge how much a student understands the material. No system, especially those involving testing, can really measure understanding or potential (I don't care how much people say the GRE measures potential, it doesn't because it can't do that, nothing can predict the future). So how do grades become fair?

There exist undergraduate degree programs that offer a "freshman forgiveness" option, your grades for the first term and possibly even first year, are forgiven and you are not held accountable for them.

How does this measure up against other schools? Shouldn't it be a complete blanket? If students don't do well at XYZ school but their grades are "forgiven" and for every semester there on out they earn a 4.0, how does that measure up to someone whose school doesn't offer that and those first term or first year marks are their lowest. It still brings down their GPA.

So I ask you, everyone out in the blogosphere (sp?) to comment on whether or not you feel that grade inflation, of any form, is acceptable. What do you think about it? Do you think it's ok? How can students level the playing field?

I have more to add later, very likely, but for now I'll give the grade inflation talk a rest.

- V.

1 comment:

elf's DH said...

There are some cases where an absolute grading system doesn't quite work. An example would be an advanced physics class, where the tests may have 100 points designed in, but nobody in the class will ever fairly get above a 20. On the other hand, classes like the large freshman classes should have a pre-set grading system and it should be stuck to.

BTW, I'm not sure who says that the GRE measures potential other than ETS literature, and they're in it for the money.