Grade Inflation - what do you think?

I would have to agree with you, I've seen it happening as well.

I don't understand any of this, so from a completely ignorant point of view... if there's an element of grade inflation, surely all the external examiners are in on it, or at least refusing to downgrade? Maybe the so-called inflation is due to more people going to college simply because there's more people in the country? Or maybe people are just studying harder and therefore more people getting higher grades?

Personally, I think the minister is a bellend and should instead be worried about how his drastic cuts will show fruit in a few years with a drastic downturn in grades across the board. But my opinion is not founded on any actual knowledge or facts etc. blah blah. I just think there's holes all over everything the minister ever says. And part of me thinks he's trying to cast a bad light on things to justify cost-cutting in some way. Again... no grounds for my opininonion.

Last year in one of my Philosophy modules there were I think 3 firsts out of 160-ish people and roughly 35% failed. I sometimes wish there was inflation. Or last semester in ancient classics, there were (I think) 7 firsts in total spread over Greek & Roman Civ, Greek and Latin. I think that's six modules, 7 firsts in total. Not so inflated I'd say. Random examples. Doesn't count for much.

Casey_81 wrote: »

I have no experience of favouritism.. generally students who try hard do well, and lecturers/tutors get to know these students because they are interested in the subject.



If students are borderline (i.e. within 1 or 2 % of the higher grade) their scripts are examined and rechecked. Resulting in them either getting a few extra % or they will loose a few %

Students are not randomly selected and given higher grades based on this.



There is an element of truth here in this. In that the curve of the results is examined to ensure that there is a good spread across the marks.

Personally, I feel that there is an element of truth in the quest by google relating to grade inflation. I blame modularisation where students from all backgrounds are thrown together into courses where they have no knowledge or aptitude. This forces the lecturer to teach to the lowest common denominator - resulting in a softer version of the course being taught - which feeds into grade inflation.

I think that if a student makes themselves known as struggling and shows enthusiasm deserves an inflation based on merit. This is usually found in the continuous assessment modules.

Modularisation is a different issue altogether. I know for sure that most departments are strict when it comes to inflation.

Mostly, I think what you're saying is a bit of a myth. I think your problem is with continuous assessment and participation marks being awarded to students, rather than anything else.

If you've a problem with how your department is dealing with this issue you should consult with them or take it to the Centre for Teaching and Learning?

theredletter wrote: »

I think that if a student makes themselves known as struggling and shows enthusiasm deserves an inflation based on merit. This is usually found in the continuous assessment modules.

Coming from the same position as the OP (and from experience at other universities over the years) this is impossible in practice. As much as we would like to award participation marks, it just doesn't work with classes of up to 400 (assuming within-tutorial grades are possible, the issue of standardisation across tutors renders it unworkable).

theredletter wrote: »

Modularisation is a different issue altogether. I know for sure that most departments are strict when it comes to inflation.

Another user commented on the ironic self-auditing nature of O' Keeffe's comments - which worryingly address the root of the problem. Modularisation is but part of a trend of resource-maximisation which has been pushed from his shop directly onto us, which has entailed (from my experience) a dumbing-down of course content, and a relaxation of compensation criteria. I find the more substantial differences appear toward the bottom of the curve - a more worthwhile question should be the amount of fails we allow progress who clearly have not demonstrated competence.

I can say that there is never any element of standardisation (although distributions are compared across staff by externs, marks are not adjusted to normalise). If every student performs to first-class level (according to marking standards set before modules are delivered), then everyone is awarded a first. As policy, all firsts and fails (if graded by a tutor) must be run past the course lecturer, so there are plenty of QC and standards checks along the way.

The extern's input is a gray area (I have not have direct experience of it at NUIM), but in general, the revised thresholds for compensation make it next to impossible for us to fail a student. When you consider the proportional figures of firsts in the context of a supposedly 'homogenous' body of 'non-first grades', the figures appear deceptively high, when in fact the real adjustments in standards are at the opposite end of the distribution.

theredletter wrote: »

Mostly, I think what you're saying is a bit of a myth. I think your problem is with continuous assessment and participation marks being awarded to students, rather than anything else.

If you've a problem with how your department is dealing with this issue you should consult with them or take it to the Centre for Teaching and Learning?

With respect, it isn't. CA grades are worth very little, attendence is a very small proportion of a CA grade for most modules, and participation is often impossible to reliably measure. Assuming a student is awarded a full participation mark for one day of eight tutorials, based on our departmental guidelines, the student stands to gain less than .01% - when in turn opens up the debate concerning CA incentives (which in my opinion should be much greater).

I came up under the old system of 'end of year' three-hour exams, and I do think this has a lot to do with it. It kept you on your toes in a way semesterisation doesn't, in that specific courses were tailored to a specific cohort of students (I was in engineering at the time), and material built cumulatively on that of a previous term. Semesterisation involves shifting cohorts of students, needless revision, and, as Casey_81 mentioned, cross-degree participation. (Hence the dumbing down).

I find Batt's (also HEA's, in general) insistence on 'resource rationalisation' (cutting face time, processing in and out), his recent harping on mythical 4-hour teaching timetables, and now this most recent self-audit of a problem of his administration's creation a little sickening.

I just wish they'd grade you properly. for certain subjects a 65 is impossible unless you dedicate two whole days a week to studying it, in others 90+ is achievable without lifting a book. (and I've done both)

Aurongroove wrote: »

I just wish they'd grade you properly. for certain subjects a 65 is impossible unless you dedicate two whole days a week to studying it, in others 90+ is achievable without lifting a book. (and I've done both)

Brendan Halpin (UL) is working on a dataset of exam grades from ten years of examination data (and was good enough to give us a peep at the raw data a few weeks back), which should see print over the coming year.

O'Keeffe's preamble included little about departmental effects, which were found to be the most significant factor determining upper-grade disproportions across UL departments - particularly faculties of subjective grading (ie. in engineering, where it is, in theory, possible to achieve full marks in everything, vs. sociology, which tends to stick to a qualitative upper-interval of 70-80 for its maximum grades).

Haven't read too much about this, but speaking in general terms, I do think grade inflation is actively in practice in the college, I think it's particularly hard to deny actually.

In my English class, the average grade when we get exam results back is between 45 and 60. There's an awful lot of 55s. I know some of the people who get these 55s and they do nothing. And I actually mean NOT A THING. They go on moodle the night before and throw together a half arsed answer and somehow come out with 55. I've also known of people working their arses off for essays or exams, and only coming out with 60.

I just don't see a standard marking scheme across the board to be honest. The people doing little or no work for an exam and getting 55, they're not naturally intelligent, they don't bother with spelling or presentation. I've read their essays and the people themselves will admit they did feck all, I mean you're reading an essay that's all words but nothing else. Yet the people getting 60 for the same essay are miles ahead of the 55-ers and their essays show that. I don't understand how there can be a 5% difference between doing no work and doing a decent amount of work.

It just annoys me when there's no work being put into something and people are still getting in the 50s for it. Are the correctors dense or something? Anybody here who corrects essays, can you not tell when someone hasn't put any effort into it?

That's why I think grade inflation (to what I understand it) is in place. I just can't see examiners and correctors being so absolutely blind to the fact that no work has been put into something, and that it's barely passable.

allandanyways wrote: »

In my English class, the average grade when we get exam results back is between 45 and 60. There's an awful lot of 55s. I know some of the people who get these 55s and they do nothing. And I actually mean NOT A THING. They go on moodle the night before and throw together a half arsed answer and somehow come out with 55. I've also known of people working their arses off for essays or exams, and only coming out with 60.

90% of the problem in my opinion, you can now get to third year without ever seeing the inside of a library

allandanyways wrote: »

It just annoys me when there's no work being put into something and people are still getting in the 50s for it. Are the correctors dense or something? Anybody here who corrects essays, can you not tell when someone hasn't put any effort into it?

As above, the lack of effort has less to do with the awarding of grades than with broader changes such as those mentioned in earlier posts (modular teaching, moodle etc).

Dont be taken by the headline, this has nothing to do with us awarding the grade - we dont set the criteria of pass grades, define standardisation of modules, implement moodle posting as policy (departments are actively encouraged) - the problems are set in motion long before we get our hands on the scripts.

A very clever move on his part - shifting the focus to a simple issue of grading, when the cause is systemic (and at this point, entrenched - hell, some of it is policy, such as compensation criteria).

allandanyways wrote: »

That's why I think grade inflation (to what I understand it) is in place. I just can't see examiners and correctors being so absolutely blind to the fact that no work has been put into something, and that it's barely passable.

Also factoring the rise in numbers attending, managerialism and commercialisation, and general social change of the past fifteen years - Ireland, much less the university, is not that of 1995.

funky penguin wrote: »

700% increase in 1sts since 1994?!?!

Is this true?!

Incredibly misleading. In 1994, 1.5% of degrees awarded got a 1st. In 2004, this was 11.1%. So this is a 640% increase (I think) in 1sts, if all you're comparing is the two figures. In fact the increase in students awarded this grade is less than 10% higher. In 1994, we had 670 degrees awarded, compared to 1175 in 2004.

There's also the fact that minimum CAO requirements have significantly risen for entry to degree courses in those 10 years.

{I've gotten all the figures from http://www.stopgradeinflation.ie/Grade_Inflation_in_the_University_Sector.pdf }

Anyway, this seems to be a retrospective study, not to mention the fact that it's observational, and the statistics are sketchy at best, and used purely in a misleading manner, I'd be very very skeptical about grade inflation overall. The percentages are thrown around willy-nilly (<- my favourite scientific term!), with no real explanation, no real statistical methods used to verify their "results". Simple frequencies, and playing around with them, making claims that, without context, to the lay person will sound bad/good, depending on the opinion of the researcher, do not give the whole picture.

If anyone can point me in the direction of a more reliable paper on the matter, or even more information, I'd appreciate it

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Hehe, 2 years ago, I did a screenwriting course with the English department, as part of our major essay assessment. The lecturer was quite open with the fact he was going to use an American grading system, whereby 90% = A, 80% = B and so on. And thus most people in the class walked out with between 80 and 90% (I got 97% <_<).

The English department freaked and gave everyone (IIRC; it's been a little while) a 30% grade deduction "in an attempt to even the scores with the rest of the people who did other essays" for other lecturers. A lot of people complained, since there were 80% who got cut to 50% and may have deserved a higher grade than that, if not as high as an 80. I still walked out with the 67% though so I was happy enough.

That's ridiculous! So they were basically saying that it's impossible to get over 70%? If they were going to change the marks, that's fine, but have each of the exams independently reviewed by a different examiner and marked as they see fit!