<p>To me, the fundamental question is what the purpose of grading is. If it’s to rank the students by achievement level, then grading on a curve makes sense. But if it’s to demonstrate the level of mastery of the material achieved by the students, then there’s no point to a curve. But I suppose that if mastery is the standard, then a teacher who gives a large number of low grades reveals that he is unable to teach the material adequately–perhaps that teacher is tempted to inflate the grades.</p>
<p>There is plenty of “grade inflation” going on well before college. It amazes me that many high schools have so many students with GPA’s close to (or above) 4.0. 
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<p>(And sometimes these same students score “average” or below on standardized tests…)</p>
<p>At my daughter’s high school, there is an entire category of students who are referred to as “grade Grubbers”. They (or their parents :eek:) often go whining to the teacher if they don’t get (or necessarily deserve) an “A”. Somehow they wear the teacher down so that the teacher will allow “extra credit” so the student can get that A. </p>
<p>Don’t think grade inflation starts in college !</p>
<p>originaloog - that is similar to the experience I had in college - back in the dark ages. Once into classes specifically for my major, the teachers started looking for the students who stood out. They were smart cookies and it didn’t take them long - especially in a rather small dept - to figure out the 4-6 students who generally scored the highest grades on tests. Luckily, I was one. Often my test/exam grade would help to determine the curve for whatever class I was in. </p>
<p>As you also mentioned, I was chosen as a junior to TA a sophomore lab class because there was a lack of grad students with enough background (came into the grad program with other degrees and had to make up courses). As an undergrad, I ended up TA-ing 3 different lab classes for a total of 6 semesters.</p>
<p>At some schools, to avoid grade inflation, they have the sensible process of evaluating what is asked of the students and then increasing the standards as the bottom moves up. This is sound pedagogy; the state of knowledge is not fixed and we need to expect more. I don’t find it at all strange that bottom groups do better relative to old bottom groups because times are different. But grades are relative to their time period and aren’t fixed over the ages. We don’t test on what they knew in 1950 and if one looks at a biology text we don’t test what they knew in 1990, so the standards must change.</p>
<p>Schools track their GPA’s and some have taken action to slow inflation. Others are now above 3.5 and some are approaching 3.7, meaning an A- is becoming their average. (Funny, but on the Yale board, a school with a lot of grade inflation, kids say it’s hard to get an A - in the context of getting a 3.85 or 3.9. They actually mean it’s relatively easy to get an A- and are defining “hard” as perfection.)</p>
<p>Among the elite schools, I believe one impetus for inflation has been stated pretty clearly by at least one administration: they want to believe all their students are that capable. I think there is a lot of “want” in that area because they don’t admit strictly on merit, but instead take a material percentage of lower achieving kids with special circumstances. Better, IMHO, not to restrain inflation because that would separate some of their students from the rest. I wonder if this will long-term cheapen their brand.</p>
<p>I’m unsure why inflation occurs at certain schools - like at some state schools. Is it recruiting? Is it just the beliefs of that President and that governing Board? </p>
<p>One factor may, as noted, be high school grade inflation. State schools now have average GPA’s of 3.5 or more and many private schools are well above. These kids come in and get worse grades and some schools have bent to accommodate. Another factor, which I’m not sure has been mentioned, is not scores but the study curriculum driven by honors and AP courses. When material is shaped toward SATII or AP exams, then you have a standard against which students can be graded. When you have that kind of standard, if more people reach it then how do you say you’ll limit the A’s and B’s? In other words, some of the inflation is standards driven. It may be that kids are coming to certain college classes with more of these standards in place but I don’t know if that would have a significant effect.</p>
<p>origanaloog, I don’t mind having tests that require students to synthesize the material, what I object to is the idea that grades in a class should fit some sort of magical bell curve. In a small class you may have nothing but students who are excelling, or you might have a class of slackers, none of whom deserve A’s. I’d like to get us back to a grading system where a B showed you knew the material and A’s were for those who went the extra mile.</p>
<p>Lergnom, the improvement in the bottom cohort of students was the most significant change which I observed during my years of college instruction. The improvement in the top cohort was far less significant. BTW I was on the engineering faculty at our flagship U.</p>
<p>Mathmom I agree with your Post #25 too. Fortunately in the engineering courses I taught the students had passed thru the frosh weeder courses which almost did me in and it was rare that I had a totally weird distribution of students for either good or bad. However I never had a problem awarding those D’s or F’s if they was well deserved</p>
<p>Is grade inflation seen in engineering and the hard sciences too? My son reports a generally normal distribution of grades around C in his technical classes (this is after those that wouldn’t have passed withdrew).</p>
<p>“However I never had a problem awarding those D’s or F’s if they was well deserved”</p>
<p>There are lots of engineering and science professors with the same approach out there.</p>
<p>originaloog, I saw that earlier in the thread. Didn’t doubt it. I would expect that, if only because standards in high school education with testing and exams have become more rigorous and more kids applying to college means a deeper applicant pool. The top cohort should be relatively stable because they’re already at a high level.</p>
<p>Grade inflation in engineering has happened at a lower rate but in many disciplines and many schools the former gentleman’s C - meaning a 2 when 2.5 was the average - is now over a 3 (and even higher, over a 3.3, at some schools). So when a school’s average GPA is 3.5, then getting a B+ 3.3 is below average. </p>
<p>My point was that pedagogy can say, “Everyone’s doing better so grades should go up” or “We’re seeing improvement so we should use that to improve what we teach until we reach a curve.” I believe in the latter approach because it gives value to continuous improvement. I’m not saying we use a curve with a huge trailing tail - meaning lots of low grades - but that we should be improving content so there’s a distribution that’s reflected in grades. </p>
<p>The problem with inflation - of any kind - is that it devalues and not merely at the level of B now equals A. Grades result from processes that include curriculum development, testing standards and a continuous process of evaluation. As an example, schools try to become better. They can make their admissions standards higher - about that below - keep their course difficulty the same and raise grades. Or they can look at what they teach, how they teach it and how they grade it so the school’s actual processes improve. One can argue the school improves by admitting “smarter” students, but then if that’s the case those smarter students - who would show in the lower cohorts - should be challenged more. Since education is about learning and improvement and betterment, you can see my preferences.</p>
<p>About admissions, it’s amazing to read the common data sets of schools and see the average gpa’s of the high school students. Schools seem to improve but are they really improving? Given the rise in high school grades and the rise in test scores - about that below - there would be improvement even if a school was actually below average in “improving” versus others. Given the volume of kids applying and changes in where kids go - meaning kids now go out of state more often - a school can appear to improve even more by changing its admissions profile slightly. </p>
<p>About scores. I think this is a mirage, not a reflection of real improvement. The topic is too large to write about here.</p>
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I think this is an interesting idea; that without at least some differentiation you can’t tell if you’re challenging the brightest students enough. But I also agree that this is very different from thinking there has to be a curve with a reasonable number of Ds and Fs. It’s the difference between a challenge and a competition.</p>
<p>The issue is “of what are grades indicative?” If it is mastery of material that can be criterion referrenced, then everyone should be able to receive an A. If it is to sort students into performance categories based up assessing variable responses to questions, then one would expect to see something approaching a normal distribution, F through A. Of course, many try and combine the two, and that is where the problems really arise. Everyone is getting it, but some, sometimes, get it more…</p>
<p>Thanks, OP. Was happy to see no change whatsoever at D’s school, not a decimal point.</p>
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<p>This is how many of my professors did grading in undergrad. Typically tests would have one really hard problem, or the last part of each problem would be considerably more difficult than the preceding parts. This way, they’d be able to differentiate between the students that could understand how the material all fit together versus the ones which could only reproduce similar work to what they had done before.</p>
<p>Many of my classes had a rather consistent curve every year. As in, >80% would be an A, >60% would be B, etc. I think a larger standard scale like that works much better than the current 90/80/70 since there’s just not enough wiggle room to explore how much students really know. The frustration comes in when, as a student, a professor tells you the curve will likely be 80% cutoff, but then when he actually goes to do it at the end of the year realizes your class did better on everything than his previous classes, so he changes it to be something considerably higher.</p>
<p>found this interesting Tufts faculty resolution on changing the Latin honors GPA thresholds in 2005 because the percentage of students receiving such honors has been creeping up. Note in the Appendix 1 graph, 30.6% of graduating students received Latin honors, climbing to 55% by 2004.
<a href=“Events Calendar | Office of the Secretary of the Faculty - Arts, Sciences, and Engineering”>Events Calendar | Office of the Secretary of the Faculty - Arts, Sciences, and Engineering;
<p>My d. is a TA at a top IVY that supposedly is curbing grade inflation. She grades all the essay sections of mid-terms and finals. The course is graded on a curve. She says that is a good thing or bad thing, depending on how one looks at. She notes that without the curve, many more students would flunk.</p>
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<p>To me, that is virtually meaningless. If the average grade on an exam is 50%; is it because the students didn’t study/are stupid or the test was extremely difficult/on material not covered? At a top Ivy, I would believe the latter combination.</p>
<p>Tests aren’t always difficult due to material not being covered. I actually just got back a test where I got a 53/100 and I felt the test was very fair. It was just extremely difficult problems where you were trying to solve as much as you could figure out. What’s funny is that all five of us in the class scored really close, even though we all scored differently on the problems. I guess it just depended on which material each of us understood best.</p>
<p>“If the average grade on an exam is 50%; is it because the students didn’t study/are stupid or the test was extremely difficult/on material not covered? At a top Ivy, I would believe the latter combination.”</p>
<p>With rare exceptions, she tells me, it is because they didn’t study. (Lots of students, being so bright, think they can fake it. And no, the material is NOT difficult, and the TAs cover all the material that is on the tests, and even hold review sessions (though only a fraction of the students apparently show up.) And many know they are protected by the curve. )</p>
<p>I should add that she took what is essentially the same course as an undergraduate; and had she or any student done as poorly as those she was grading, they definitely would have failed.</p>
<p>Was she taught by profs or TAs? :p</p>