more on grading policy

I’ve written before about my work through EPC on grading policy. After a year’s worth of consideration, we are presenting a resolution tomorrow for UNC to report grade distributions on transcripts for each class, and to report grade patterns to faculty each semester.

Two colleagues wrote me a detailed and thoughtful message about the proposal, and while I do not agree with their position, I asked and they agreed to have me post it to scatterplot for further discussion. Their message is below the break; my response and further discussion is posted as the first responses to the post.

We are writing in response to Faculty Council Resolution 2010‐3 on “Enhanced Grade Reporting.” We appreciate the work of the committee, but have serious reservations about the proposal. We hope you’ll distribute/forward our email to members of the Faculty Council so that this view can become part of the conversation. Instead of adopting the proposal, we call for the start of a  serious conversation about the  *purpose* of grades and the factors that may contribute to variations in  grade distributions across time and courses.

Like the Achievement Index, reporting course and section grade  distributions along with student individual grades will presumably allow  viewers of the transcript (employers, award committees) to assess the  student’s performance against those of her/his peers. This goal  assumes that our primary purpose as educators is to  differentiate between students and that grades are the primary markers  of this differentiation.

An *alternative view* is that our primary goal is to successfully educate  our students in the substance and methods of our respective fields, and  grades should be used to mark the performance of the student against  predetermined standards of proficiency and learning  objectives that  instructors painstakingly develop for each course. In this view, the  loftiest goals to which we can aspire would be to set appropriately  tough standards that are in line with the  expectations of our  profession, and then work diligently and creatively to help all of our  students reach those goals.  Achieving these goals would result in a  better educated populous but would certainly not eliminate grade  compression.  In fact, accomplishing this goal would *fairly* result  in  lots of As. This perspective on grading is called “the mastery method” among education scholars.

“Grade inflation” implies that higher grades are being awarded for  comparable work done in the  past. Supposedly our standards for  performance have declined while student performance has  remained  relatively stable or declined. We have little doubt that slipping  grading standards  *could* be *one* of the factors explaining variations  in grade distributions across time and  courses. This is certainly an  issue that deserves additional study, starting with serious  conversations, both within and across departments, about the  establishment of rigorous learning  objectives and fair grading standards.
However, educational standards have surely increased over time as well.  For example, how many  professors in the 1970s required their students to  write well, analyze data, lead discussion  sections, AND perform  community service?  Moreover, there are many other factors besides  changing standards that likely contribute to variations in grade  distributions across time. Indeed,  increases in average grades might  result from the development of more sophisticated learning and  teaching  tools, stronger economic incentives among students to earn good grades,  or improvements in the proficiency of teachers to convey expectations  and imbue their students  with necessary skills.

Increases in average  grades may also reflect powerful selection processes. With improvements  in  the distribution of information on the content of courses and the  teaching style of specific  instructors, students are now better able to  select courses that fit their interests and strengths,  allowing them to  perform better. In light of these changes, it is quite likely that  actual student  performance and proficiency has increased over time,  possibly at a faster pace than increases in  learning objectives and  grading standards.  In this sense, it would be inaccurate to conceive of  increasing grade averages as true “grade inflation,” and we would  conceive of different remedies  for the issue, assuming that increasing  grade averages, by themselves, constitute a problem in  need of remedy.
Similarly, variations in grades across courses and sections, either in  the cross-section or across  time, are likely a product of a wide range  of factors. For example, the strongest students were  choosing very  different majors twenty years ago than they are today and there has been  similar  shuffling between majors between these extremes. Larger  increases in grades in some disciplines  than in others might just  reflect the fact that selection processes have resulted in stronger  increases in the quality of students who choose different majors.  Similarly, variations in  professional emphasis on pedagogy might result  in the adoption of stronger teaching methods in  some fields than in  others and we would expect variations in student performance to emerge  as a  result, even if all disciplines and courses have similarly rigorous  standards. Even changes in grade  distributions for individual faculty  members could reflect the adoption of improved  teaching techniques and  strengthening ability of individual instructors to inspire their  students.   Indeed, these individual-level improvements in teaching  performance are exactly what we expect  from our faculty development efforts.
As with any policy rooted in incomplete information, there is a strong  chance that the proposed  actions would do more harm than good.  Encouraging the comparison of an individual’s grade  relative to the  distribution of grades for the course, either through some kind of  Achievement  Index or through the steps currently on the table, will  necessarily punish the students who do well  in classes in which their  classmates also succeeded. As intended, it will devalue the grades of  those students who habitually seek out the instructors who construct  overly easy courses and  dole out easy As to undeserving students.  But it would also punish those students who take    courses from excellent  instructors who strive to help all of their students achieve lofty  goals. It  would also increase status competition among students and make  them less interested in working together, the hallmarks of participatory  learning and the teaching of cooperation and teamwork.  At the same time, the steps  in the current proposal will embolden faculty members whose courses  have  what might be deemed sufficiently low grade distributions, giving them  no incentive to think  about whether the fact that so few students earn  high marks in their classes might reflect  their inability or  unwillingness to assist students in achieving excellence. We are very concerned   about these consequences.

All of this suggests that the factors behind any increase in average  grades and variations across  disciplines, courses, and sections are  exceedingly complex and cannot be easily equated with a  grade-inflation  phenomenon or reduced to a simple slipping-standards argument. All of  these  factors deserve additional attention if we are to develop  effective remedies for any flaws in the  current grading system.  Rather than going forward with Faculty  Council Resolution 2010‐3 on  “Enhanced Grade Reporting,” we recommend  rigorous study of the factors affecting changes in  grade distributions,  as well as increased conversation about pedagogical goals and the  *purpose*  of grades in the attainment of those goals.

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Sherryl Kleinman, Professor
Department of Sociology

Kyle Crowder, Professor
Department of Sociology