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Joan Erickson

Grade Inflation Article - Teaching Resources - Center for Excellence in Teaching and Le... - 0 views

  • definition is that grade patterns change so that the overwhelming majority of students in a class, college, or university receive higher grades for the same quantity and quality of work done by students in the past
  • corollary to this definition is the same GPA obtained by students with poorer academic skill
  • less well known version of grade inflation is "content deflation" where students receive the same grades as students in the past but with less work required and less learning
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  • Poor grades exposed male students to the military draft
  • colleges and universities mandate frequent student evaluations of faculty
  • These same evaluations play an increasingly important role in tenure and promotion decisions
  • Factors such as student effort, student persistence, student improvement, and class attendance count in favor of the students who possess these desirable characteristics
  • faculty member who believes that grades are a vehicle to please students rather than to recognize and reward performance will tend to give higher grades
  • Similarly a professor less willing to distinguish superior work from good or average work will tend to impart an upward bias to grades
  • large number of non-traditional students, and a large number of working students all tempt professors to lower their expectations by reducing the number of textbooks
  • current trend for classroom assessment by external authorities as an attempt to obtain again meaningful feedback on the quality of student performance.
  • use of just five categories of grades (A-F) has, in the minds of some, contributed to overall grade inflation
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    insightful explanation the reasons why grades are inflated
Joan Erickson

Grade inflation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • took a rare stance against grade inflation in 2004, and publicly announced a policy designed to curb it. The policy states that A's should account for less than 35 percent of the grades for undergraduate courses and less than 55 percent of grades for junior and senior independent work
  • To date, the administration has not taken steps to strictly enforce these guidelines, instead opting to rely on departments to apply them
  • nearly constant in the Natural Science departments, which were typically at or near the 35% guideline
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  • 2.27.
  • 2.55
  • 3.48
  • 90% A's
  • reputation for rigorous grading policies in some science and engineering classes
  • no more than 17% of the students in any given class may be awarded A grades, and that the class GPA should be in the range of 2.7 to 2.9 out of a maximum of 4.0 grade poi
  • GPA at University of Chicago increased from 2.50 in 1965 to 3.26 in 1999
  • Ninety-five per cent scored at least grade C, having gained only 10 marks from 55. Pupils could score an A* with only 51 per cent of the marks
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    brief snapshots of collges and universitites's guidelines to combat grade inflation
Melissa Pietricola

Student Evaluations, Grade Inflation, and Declining Student Effort - Innovations - The ... - 0 views

  • The less rigorous professors even get good performances out of their students in the courses taught but those students subsequently, in follow up courses, do poorer than the more rigorous professors who do more than teach to the standardized test. Sounds reasonable to me.
  • would note that student evaluations began to become popular during the 1960s and early 1970s as a common evaluation tool for faculty. I would also note that most of the great grade inflation in America has occurred since evaluations began, with national grade point averages probably rising from the 2.5 or 2.6 range in about 1960 to well over 3.0 today
  • The colleges of education, which in my judgment should be put out of business (topic for another blog), are the worst offenders, but the problem is pretty universal.
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  • Alternatively, colleges could by mandate or the use of financial incentives encourage faculty to become more rigorous in their grading
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    Inflations as a reaction to student evaluations
Melissa Pietricola

Study hits 'grade inflation' in New York state testing of pupils | SILive.com - 0 views

  • middle-school students who passed their math and English Language Arts tests are likely to struggle on their high school Regents exams
  • tudents who scored a Level 3 on their state tests -- which is considered passing -- would likely earn a 65 on their Regents exams, but that a score of 80 was typically needed to earn college credit for a course, according to the News.
  • Steiner is also calling for longer tests with more rigorous questions.
    • Melissa Pietricola
       
      Does longer mean better? Does a longer test necessarily mean it will better assess the learning objective?
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  • Critics have long been saying the tests appeared to be getting easier, and have wondered whether the scoring was adjusted to make politicians look better.
    • Melissa Pietricola
       
      Do regents and middle level state tests give kids "false sense of hope" as she states? My kids could care less what the state says. They are worried about their daily grades.
  • "But by any measure -- including the highly respected NAEP exams, state tests, and graduation rates -- due to the bold reform agenda implemented by this administration, the significant progress made by New York City students has far outpaced that of students in the rest of New York state."
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    NYS example of grade inflation; focusing on the middle level
Melissa Pietricola

ASCD Inservice: Grade Inflation a "Huge Problem" - 0 views

  • "tough graders" risk poor evaluations and low course enrollment from students and losing institutional support from parents.
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    blog discussion on the topic
Jessica Backus-Foster

STUDENT SELF-EVALUATION: WHAT RESEARCH SAYS AND WHAT PRACTICE SHOWS - 1 views

  • Self-evaluation is defined as students judging the quality of their work, based on evidence and explicit criteria, for the purpose of doing better work in the future.
  • enhanced self-efficacy and increased intrinsic motivation
  • Do students self-evaluate fairly? Many teachers, parents, and students believe that if students have a chance to mark their own work they will take advantage, giving themselves higher scores regardless of the quality of their performance. We have found that students, especially older ones, may do this if left to their own devices. But, when students are taught systematic self-evaluation procedures, the accuracy of their judgment improves. Contrary to the beliefs of many students, parents, and teachers, students' propensity to inflate grades decreases when teachers share assessment responsibility and control (Ross, et al., 2000). When students participate in the identification of the criteria that will be used to judge classroom production and use these criteria to judge their work, they get a better understanding of what is expected. The result is the gap between their judgments and the teacher's is reduced. And, by focusing on evidence, discrepancies between teacher and self-evaluation can be negotiated in a productive way.
    • Jessica Backus-Foster
       
      this is what I was wondering
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  • E. Is simply requiring self-evaluation enough, or do students have to be taught how to evaluate their work accurately? Students harbor misconceptions about the self-evaluation process (e.g., the role that evidence plays). As a result, self-evaluation is unlikely to have a positive impact on achievement if these misconceptions are not addressed by teaching students how to evaluate their work. Simply requiring self-evaluation is unlikely to have an effect on achievement. Students have to be taught how to evaluate their work accurately and need time to develop the appropriate skills.
    • Jessica Backus-Foster
       
      this is the important part...to really get the full benefits, we have to teach students the process and make them part of the process
  • G. What is the greatest challenge for teachers incorporating self-evaluation into their assessment repertoires? One of the greatest challenges for teachers is the recalibration of power that occurs when assessment decisions are shared. Data collected in one of our projects (Ross et al., 1998a) suggested that teachers found it difficult to share control of evaluation decision-making, a responsibility at the core of the teacher's authority. Such difficulty may be due to the fact that teaching students to be self-evaluators involves the implementation of fundamental changes in the relationship between teachers and students in the classroom. Changing root beliefs, behaviors and relationships is difficult and takes time. Accordingly, another challenge is time. Teachers need considerable time to work out how to accommodate an innovation that involves sharing control of a core teacher function with their existing beliefs about teacher and learner roles. As well, students need time to understand what self-evaluation is and how it relates to their learning, in addition to learning how to do it.
  • STAGE 1- Involve students in defining the criteria that will be used to judge their performance
  • STAGE 1- Involve students in defining the criteria that will be used to judge their performance.
  • STAGE 1- Involve students in defining the criteria that will be used to judge their performance.
  • STAGE 2- Teach students how to apply the criteria to their own work.
Diane Gusa

STUDENT SELF-EVALUATION: WHAT RESEARCH SAYS AND WHAT PRACTICE SHOWS - 1 views

  • Self-evaluation is defined as students judging the quality of their work, based on evidence and explicit criteria, for the purpose of doing better work in the future. W
  • Self-evaluation is defined as students judging the quality of their work, based on evidence and explicit criteria, for the purpose of doing better work in the future. W
  • Self-evaluation is defined as students judging the quality of their work, based on evidence and explicit criteria, for the purpose of doing better work in the future
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  • Self-evaluation is a potentially powerful technique because of its impact on student performance through enhanced self-efficacy and increased intrinsic motivation
  • STUDENT SELF-EVALUATION: WHAT RESEARCH SAYS AND WHAT PRACTICE SHOWS By Carol Rolheiser and John A. Ross
  • Self-evaluation is defined as students judging the quality of their work, based on evidence and explicit criteria, for the purpose of doing better work in the future
  • Alternate assessment must be transparent (Fredericksen & Collins, 1989), meaning that the criteria for appraisal, the population from which tasks are drawn, the scoring key and interpretive schemes must be visible to students, even when the teachers who devised these procedures have an imperfect grasp of them
  • One teacher resolved the conflict by redefining her metaphor of assessment from that of "fair judgment" to providing a ‘"window into a student's mind" (p. 309),
  • STAGE 1- Involve students in defining the criteria that will be used to judge their performance.
  • Involving students in determining the evaluation criteria initiates a negotiation
  • If students have been involved in a negotiation in Stage 1, the criteria that result will be an integrated set of personal and school goals.
  • - Give students feedback on their self-evaluations.
  • Teachers need to help students recalibrate their understanding by arranging for students to receive feedback (from the teacher, peers, and themselves) on their attempts to implement the criteria.
  • when students are taught systematic self-evaluation procedures, the accuracy of their judgment improves. Contrary to the beliefs of many students, parents, and teachers, students' propensity to inflate grades decreases when teachers share assessment responsibility and control (Ross, et al., 2000).
  • Students will learn more because (i) self-evaluation will focus student attention on the objectives measured, (ii) the assessment provides teachers with information they would otherwise lack, (iii) students will pay more attention to the assessment, and (iv) student motivation will be enhanced.
  • Our own research and that of others substantiate these four arguments.
  • Positive self-evaluations encourage students to set higher goals and commit more personal resources to learning tasks (Bandura, 1997; Schunk, 1995).
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    By Carol Rolheiser and John A. Ross
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