Lecturers and grading.

scrummonkey

so, the exams are over. I was just thinking that the lecturers have a truck load of papers to grade. Most of them are busy with both academic and extra-academic work and the provisional results have to be posted within weeks. Soooo, how can they find time to properly grade each and every one ? Now, I have a theory. They skim through a paper with the previous results of the student at hand so as to guide the grade or they outsource them to phd students!

Nonesense I hear you say ? Quite possibly but......has anyone any thoughts ? any anecdotal stories ?

Mr.Saturn

There's a mixture, lecturers and PhD people. I was straight-up told in a tutorial.

I'm a PhD student who is a tutor for a module and I also correct half of the papers for that module. It's the norm. I've probably interacted with the students more than the lecturer so I don't see the issue. If the module in question is a 1st year module with 300 papers then of course you can't expect the lecturer to correct every one of them. They certainly don't skim through papers as you say, we take the marking very seriously.

Canard

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm a PhD student who is a tutor for a module and I also correct half of the papers for that module. It's the norm. I've probably interacted with the students more than the lecturer so I don't see the issue. If the module in question is a 1st year module with 300 papers then of course you can't expect the lecturer to correct every one of them. They certainly don't skim through papers as you say, we take the marking very seriously.

Its probably different for every area, but out of interest, if tutors are splitting the papers do they try to stop your own tutor from correcting your exam, or do they just sort of split it top half/bottom half?

Top half bottom half as correcting is supposed to be unbiased. I'm the only tutor for my module so it wouldn't matter either way anyway.

IrishKnight

In science, at least in SBBS, the lecturer will correct the papers. No PhD student will correct them. During exam time the profs just work on correcting scripts more or less, cancelling meetings and correcting them from home 7 days a week...

scrummonkey

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm a PhD student who is a tutor for a module and I also correct half of the papers for that module. It's the norm. I've probably interacted with the students more than the lecturer so I don't see the issue. If the module in question is a 1st year module with 300 papers then of course you can't expect the lecturer to correct every one of them. They certainly don't skim through papers as you say, we take the marking very seriously.

I certainly would not question your integrity and mean no offence, but I am somewhat surprised. I take it that the lecturer sets the exam, so I presume you were fully briefed on what the particuler lecturer required, what he had emphasised and pointed to as important during the lectures ?. If not, am I not at the mercy of your subjective view, ( which may or may not, correlate with the particular lecturer's view), rather than a grading based within the parameters of HOW the module was taught ?. I beleive this has a huge bearing on whether a high grade is obtained or not. Now, of course, I could be accused of over reliance on what the lecturer says but why bother going to lectures if it can be made redundant by a 3rd party ? I would much prefer to be in the half graded by the lecturer who delivered the module!
Anyway, thank you for your response.

scrummonkey

scrummonkey wrote: »

I certainly would not question your integrity and mean no offence, but I am somewhat surprised. I take it that the lecturer sets the exam, so I presume you were fully briefed on what the particuler lecturer required, what he had emphasised and pointed to as important during the lectures ?. If not, am I not at the mercy of your subjective view, ( which may or may not, correlate with the particular lecturer's view), rather than a grading based within the parameters of HOW the module was taught ?. I beleive this has a huge bearing on whether a high grade is obtained or not. Now, of course, I could be accused of over reliance on what the lecturer says but why bother going to lectures if it can be made redundant by a 3rd party ? I would much prefer to be in the half graded by the lecturer who delivered the module!
Anyway, thank you for your response.

No offence caused I assure you! However I correct science scripts so my subjective view doesn't really come into it. There is a marking scheme for the paper, it tells me where I should be dropping you marks (missing units, calculator mistake, incorrect equation etc.) Whereas in Arts where you are correcting essays and a subjective view obviously does matter, I have no idea if it is just the lecturer that corrects the exam.

Sam the Sham

scrummonkey wrote: »

I certainly would not question your integrity and mean no offence, but I am somewhat surprised. I take it that the lecturer sets the exam, so I presume you were fully briefed on what the particuler lecturer required, what he had emphasised and pointed to as important during the lectures ?. If not, am I not at the mercy of your subjective view, ( which may or may not, correlate with the particular lecturer's view), rather than a grading based within the parameters of HOW the module was taught ?. I beleive this has a huge bearing on whether a high grade is obtained or not. Now, of course, I could be accused of over reliance on what the lecturer says but why bother going to lectures if it can be made redundant by a 3rd party ? I would much prefer to be in the half graded by the lecturer who delivered the module!
Anyway, thank you for your response.

You have a lot to learn about education...

Here's where you're going wrong: you are assuming that higher education is like the leaving cert: the lecturer has a large pile of factual knowledge that he doles out to you in small doses and you ingurgitate. When the time comes for you to be examined, you regurgitate all of the knowledge that you ingested onto your exam paper and the lecturer looks at it to see whether it matches what he's got in his stockpile of facts.

What's wrong with this picture? Education is not about facts. It is about thinking. Therefore, it doesn't matter whether the (educated, thoughtful) person doing the grading knows what was covered in lecture or not as long as they know the area. What matters is their ability to assess a cogent (i.e., thoughtful) argument. Since they are conversant with the subject area and know their way around arguments, they are competent to assess. Never mind that the kinds of arguments produced by UCD undergrads are generally at such a low level that an educated undergraduate from elsewhere would be competent to assess them...

Students who can do no more than memorise what the lecturer says (or what they've read) can never be anything other than mediocre, C students at best.

scrummonkey

Sam the Sham wrote: »

You have a lot to learn about education...

Here's where you're going wrong: you are assuming that higher education is like the leaving cert: the lecturer has a large pile of factual knowledge that he doles out to you in small doses and you ingurgitate. When the time comes for you to be examined, you regurgitate all of the knowledge that you ingested onto your exam paper and the lecturer looks at it to see whether it matches what he's got in his stockpile of facts.

What's wrong with this picture? Education is not about facts. It is about thinking. Therefore, it doesn't matter whether the (educated, thoughtful) person doing the grading knows what was covered in lecture or not as long as they know the area. What matters is their ability to assess a cogent (i.e., thoughtful) argument. Since they are conversant with the subject area and know their way around arguments, they are competent to assess. Never mind that the kinds of arguments produced by UCD undergrads are generally at such a low level that an educated undergraduate from elsewhere would be competent to assess them...

Students who can do no more than memorise what the lecturer says (or what they've read) can never be anything other than mediocre, C students at best.

Wow. Those silly little undergrads eh? You misunderstand what I was saying. I meerly questioned whether lecturers in fact graded papers. I gave reasons why I believe they should. I did not say I simply regurgetate the lectures and therefore I should obtain a high grade. As for whether I have a lot to learn, of course I do !

neelyohara

scrummonkey wrote: »

Now, I have a theory. They skim through a paper with the previous results of the student at hand so as to guide the grade or they outsource them to phd students!

For a start it's blind marking... so they won't know who you are or what your grades are like and all examiners are nominated to and approved by academic council, it's not a case of getting a pet PhD to stick a grade on some scripts.

In large modules there will normally be more than one examiner. In some of these instances the module coordinator may not grade any papers whatsoever but with good reason - they may have a module of up to five hundred students who are answering multiple questions. That's thousands of questions for one module - and each question must get an individual grade.

The likelihood is that they will also be coordinating a number of modules at undergrad and postgrad level and each of those modules will have some form of end of semester assessment.

For the modules with assistant examiners the module coordinator will need to arrange markers meetings, give marking guidelines, divide out the scripts, deal with questions and queries. They will look to establish a baseline - perhaps they'll have every examiner grade the same 10 scripts and see what happens. They'll also need to enter those grades into the system and perform a physical double check to make sure the grade written on the front of the script matches the grade entered into the system. This is all done in a very, very short time.

When the grades are back the same module coordinator will also need to look at the grade distribution - how do this years grades compare to last years... how do the grades from different examiners compare, etc... and then all of this information is brought to exam boards at school, college and programme level.

Not to mention that every school has an external examiner who reviews a sample of scripts and grade distributions (amongst other things).

In theory it won't matter if the module coordinator or examiner 1, 2 or 3 grade the paper because the standard will be set and any anomalies will be highlighted.

SparkySpitfire

What happens in the period between provisional and final results?