Talk:Grade inflation

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Contents 1 Causes 2 Grade inflation in other countries 3 a different perspective 4 international experience 5 UC Berkeley GPA 6 Wikipedia says you should do this. 7 And... Publication inflation

[edit] Causes

what causes it? simple -- students give better course evaluations to professors when professors hand out better grades. give a C or D on the midterm, and you will get punished come evaluation time. and of course the professors care, since their own advancement and salary are influenced by the teaching evaluations. Wolfman 22:09, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Not true. The cause of "grade inflation" is the subsidizing of higher ed via student loans, Pell Grants and price fixing among the colleges. Because they don't have to compete on the basis of true price/value relationships, the schools compete on the basis of inflated grades. 216.153.214.94 22:45, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, Rex. How many courses have you taught? I've been a professor for over a decade, at 3 different major universities. I've spent dozens of hours in faculty meetings about this. I personally know I give higher grades because of it, and almost all of my colleagues admit it too. Your economic logic about competition is utterly incoherent, by the way. First, there is relatively little that administrations can do about grading policies except for moral suasion. No one tells me what grades I can hand out. Second, schools are still in competition with each other, even if overall demand goes up as a consequence of subsidies. To the extent that administrators can set overall grading policy, they have an incentive to allow high grades. Why? Because that's precisely what draws good students. After all, what determines "value" to a student? The likelihood of a good GPA, and thus a good job or entrance to med school is very high on the "value" list. Stanford hands out 40% A's. That's not because of Pell grants. Now I'm sure there are some professors who are immune to these pressures, but I personally don't know any. Wolfman 23:36, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm... since you just admitted you give unwarranted higher grades for CYA reasons, you just admitted that you have no moral backbone. Surely your example is proof postive of the corruption of higher education. Principly, corruption occurs when there is lack of competition. Thank you for proving my point. 216.153.214.94 03:17, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The only thing immoral would be not teaching well and not caring if students learn. Though ultimately I get judged primarily by my research output, the single thing in my career I am most proud of and most enjoy is working individually with students. I personally think grades are utterly ridiculous. It shouldn't be about the grade on a piece of paper, it should be about learning -- and the two are very imperfectly correlated. I could go on at great length about how corrupt the system is, but I don't think the people involved are. Neither the students who worry more about grades than about learning, nor the professors who nudge grades up slightly to keep students happy. The irony of being lectured on morals of all thing by a hardcore Pharisee rightwinger is mind-boggling. Or was Jesus a Republican? Wolfman 06:44, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wolfman; there is a Chinese proverb which says "If you sit by the river long enough, you see the bodies of your enemies float by". Likewise, by me waiting long enough, you have revealed yourself to be the biased, anti-Christian bigot that you are. Nice going. 216.153.214.94 06:48, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

BTW: What do you teach your students? How to make bigoted comments? 216.153.214.94 06:50, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wolfman, I would like to say that I am an undergrad myself and I would like to say that given the quality of your opinions and the obvious accompanying intellect, I would be happy to have you as a professor anyday. --kizzle 03:51, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Kizzle says "Teach me Wolfman. Indoctrinate me in the mysterious ways of liberal-bias". 216.153.214.94 06:45, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

its all the fault of the librals!!!

Rex, what do you do that makes you so high and mighty, a janitor? --kizzle 07:17, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Ha, Ha, Ha. Economic elitism bigotry - another funny one! 216.153.214.94 15:14, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

you would know all about economic elitism bigotry, you're a republican :) --kizzle 20:10, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

It seems to me that the schools who complain about grade inflation are very selective (Harvard and Stanford are two mentioned in the article). This is pure speculation, but has any thought been given to the idea that these schools accept very few people who would get C's or lower in their classes? People who get into Ivy League schools, Stanford, MIT, etc. are at the tops of their classes in high school, do well on standardized tests, and are involved in all sorts of extracurricular activities. It seems to me, given all that work to get in, students at these schools have already shown that they are capable of excelling at these institutions and if they aren't, many of them are so used to getting A's (and maybe the occasional B), that they would drop classes they aren't going to do well in. --Hazey Jane 08:11, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Therein lies the question do we want to:

• Grade someone on the basis of his comparison to the other students at his school and make the tacit assumption that anyone reading his GPA will know to weigh it with the knowledge of which school that grade came from?

or

• Grade someone on the basis of his comparison to all other students in the country, in which case, it would be absurd not to expect the students of Ivy League schools to have higher GPAs.

What is a grade supposed to mean?

Additionally, I personally know a professor at my school who was fired (he was not tenured) because his students gave him poor evaluations, primarily stating that he was too hard. 66.240.10.170 22:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)loodog

[edit] Grade inflation in other countries

I think that this article is too US-centric. Grade inflation occurs in other countries as well, especially in poorer ones, where a large part of the population wants to emigrate. Another cause of grade inflation may be "political correctnes" - teachers assign higher grades to representatives of minorities in fear of otherwise being labeled as intolerant.

Good point. It needs to be changed into terms that are more general. BTW, the short piece about grade problems is very interesting. Maybe some more could be written? My personal experience is that a wrong translation of grades is a big issue. Apupunchau 13:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Concerning Europe grade inflation does also exist. (I can only speak for Switzerland, Germany, France and (partially) Spain.) However, here the situation is more complicated, as (inflated or not) grades are only partially important for an academic career. With many professors and at many institutes, having a left/green attitude is more decisive. But before bashing this - surely unfair - practice, one should also be aware that in the private sector there's the opposite. Often, if you only might be leftist or green your qualification is valueless.

These are rather sad facts, which are imo absolutely not just exceptions. I've worked for years, both in academia and in the industry, and have seen that this is almost common practice. I always tried not to act like this, but in both cases the resistance is very strong.

Concerning academia, I noticed that grades per se almost reflect nothing. You need to make other efforts in order to have an idea about a person's skills and competence. Unfortunately, I don't know of any systematic study or reference on this issue. (Btw, see also my comment on "publication inflation" below, or whatever one could call this.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.77.76.31 (talk) 21:35, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

In the UK, stories of grade inflation is often reported in a number of news media. Sometimes, it seems that the questions are becoming easier. In other cases, it appears to be related to a shift from "absolute marking" to "relative marking". I.e.: Under relative (I think) they start off saying that 15% of the students WILL get an A (if grades range from A-E, with A as highest), and then set the grade bands so that approx. 15% of exam scripts will be graded an A. The result is that if you are in a "bad" year (lots of low marks), then it will be easier to get an A. This tends to make it harder to compare grades across years, as you would need to know what the average performance was in that year. The opposite can occurs - there was actually a controversy where exams were marked DOWN because examiners were under pressure to reduce the number of A grades given out. An absolute system would not do this, you either score enough to

make the grade or you don't. --204.4.131.140 (talk) 14:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC) Found some external links [1] and [2]--204.4.131.140 (talk) 14:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

In the Netherlands, there are two types of tests in "highschool" (our school system doe not have a complete analogy of a highschool, but it's close enough). The first type of test is graded by the school of the student and one teacher from another school. The second type of test is the "centraal schriftelijk examen", which is a national test, prepared by a national government institution. The final grade will be the average of the grades from both kinds of test. Since the individual schools have no influence on the national test, and every student must do this test in each of his final examination subjects, grade inflation is very visible. If in a particular school, grade inflation would be significant, students will be caught by surprise in the national test, and probably fail it. In practice, the national exams tend to be slightly easier then the school exams, because no school wants his students to be insufficiently prepared. That would certainly raise big complaints. The bottom line is that to counter grade inflation, you need independent criteria. This is feasible, but not easy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.80.203.194 (talk) 15:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] a different perspective

I find it hard to understand why anyone thinks that grades can be or should be 'objective.' More than anything else, 'objective' grading rewards those who learn quickly, not those who learn well. How many of us have had the experience of not fully understanding a difficult article on the first (or third, or fifth) reading? Often, that 'eureka' feeling of having fully understood something comes in the shower, on the bus, or two years after a given lecture. On the other hand, I'm sure everyone can identify with the experience of cramming for an exam, then promptly forgetting everything immediately after handing in the exam booklet. It has always seemed to me that giving high grades based on participation and personal progress is probably a more accurate reflection of actual learning -- plus, it encourages students to come to class and hand in assignments, which generally makes them more prepared for the final exam. In any event, grading is a rather vicious activity, and is definitely the one thing that spoils the joy of teaching. Personally, I would rather have my students not worry about their grades, so they can focus on the actual material and the classroom discussion. I find this has excellent results in terms of what students know -- and this is verified by seeing the same students in my advanced courses; they are invariably well-versed in the material. Finally, why should stress be part of the academic environment? It has always seemed to me to be utterly opposed to *learning* of any sort.

In any system designed to compare people, objectivity is the goal, albeit not always fully attainable. Create any test and there will be inequities in attained scores. Some people worked harder and learned more than others who got better scores. Additionally, true to the nature of college students, removal of the grading system would demotivate students rather than encourage them to try harder.

[edit] international experience

as a high school student, i can say it's harder for us here at an ib-based international school in brazil to get A's and B's in comparison to your traditional high school in the US... way harder. We had folks here going for 6-month exchanges at american schools and getting all A's and being offered admission to Yale.. and being mediocre students grade-wise when they came back.

All this is very interesting but for an encyclopedia article there need to be sources to show general trends, not just anecdotal evidence. One could probably find many conflicting anecdotes based on this subject but this would, in itself, prove very little without knowing what general trends exist. I also agree with the point made in another section of this page that the article is too concerned with grade inflation in the United States and its academic institutions and a broader overview of the situation across the world is needed. Perhaps, one could have different sub-sections in the article on the situation in different countries. This might be a terrible idea though - any thoughts? Hydraton31 19:11, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UC Berkeley GPA

According to the UC Berkeley Office of Student Research, the average GPA at UCB is actually 3.245 as of Spring 2006, up from 3.077 in Spring 1996. Doesn't sound particularly "harsh" to me.

I updated the article to include similar information from the UCB website. --orlady 23:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia says you should do this.

"Furthermore, those who use grades in determining life outcomes for a student must act as if grade inflation has not occurred, taking the grades at their old, pre-inflated values - otherwise they could simply adjust and grade inflation would not be a serious issue. This could happen either due to neglect, or due to constraints of the grading system itself. For example, if the grading system stipulates an absolute maximum grade, then the problem of picking out the 'cream of the crop', discussed below, naturally comes into play."

Is Wikipedia telling people what to do or is it making an assumption about the practices of people "determining life outcomes"? Either way, I'm not sure it's appropriate. Alex Dodge 06:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] And... Publication inflation

Another similar phenomena in current academia is "publication inflation" which seems to be very actual. Any resources, links, references on this topic available? What about an article on this issue? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.77.100.207 (talk) 20:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)