BlogU

  • In Praise of Grade Inflation

    By Joshua Kim January 5, 2010 9:36 pm EST

    How many times have all of us complained about grade inflation? I'm guilty. You're guilty. We all do it. But maybe we're all wrong.

    What if grades are a discouraging force for original, innovative, and creative student work? What if our students focus on delivering what they think the professor wants in order to receive an "A" - rather then challenging the professors ideas and the prevailing wisdom? I'm starting to wonder if teaching faculty realize that grades are serving to demotivate creative student work, and are therefore taking grades "off the table" by defaulting to a higher grade. I'm starting to see grade inflation as perhaps a good thing.

    My thinking is under the influence of the book I'm reading now, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink. (If you don't have time for the book you can check out Pink's T.E.D talk.)

    Pink makes the argument that external carrots and sticks are poor motivators for performance. For creative, heuristic, right brain problem-solving work that requires collaboration, communication and the development of new ideas, products or systems - the only effective motivations are intrinsic. People need to believe in their tasks, be given autonomy and control, and only then will they be able to produce high quality creative work.

    Carrots and sticks are good motivators for routine, mechanistic, algorithmic tasks. People will work faster on an assembly line if they are paid more. Under what Pink calls "motivation 2.0", grades can work very well to motivate students to spend long-hours studying the material in order to answer multiple choice questions. The more you study, the more you will recall on the exam, the better your grade will be.

    But many of our classes are moving towards an active learning approach where students are required to create something new. A better understanding of how we learn, catalyzed by technologies that bring multimedia authoring and sharing to a range of technical skill levels, have combined to transition our students from knowledge consumers to knowledge creators. This transition is occurring earlier than in the past, where previous cohorts needed to wait until graduate school to become part of the scholarly conversation. Today, with blogs, wikis, rapid authoring, Slideshare, and YouTube - all of our students (even in large classes) can learn the material by teaching.

    I'm betting that classes where students act as creators as opposed to consumers end up with much higher grades. We realize we are stuck in a grading regime that is built on the assumption that higher grades will motivate higher levels of achievement. We know that this assumption is incorrect, that grades tend to freeze students and stifle creativity and risk taking, so we get around this roadblock by giving "A's" for demonstrated passion. If classes are set up correctly than each student should be able to find something in the curriculum that they are passionate about - and find some way to demonstrate their passion that matches their learning style - and therefore receive an "A". If we teach to our students' strengths, rather than try to correct their weaknesses, the result will be higher grades.

    Now, I know that this explanation for rising average grades can't hold for every class. Some classes require, I guess, traditional high-stakes multiple choice exams and the demonstration of foundational knowledge (although I'm skeptical). For every other class, where we are working to inspire our students and help them develop their own intrinsic motivation to learn, I say to go ahead and grade inflate away.

Go to comments (12) »
Advertisement
On the Job Market Together?

Comments on In Praise of Grade Inflation

  • Opening a can of worms.
  • Posted by Brian Mulligan , Open Learning Coordinator at institute of Technology Sligo, Ireland. on January 6, 2010 at 6:45am EST

  • This is an interesting take on it. It would suggest that employers would need to take grades with a large pinch of salt. This may cause difficulties in countries where legislation makes it difficult to get rid of a worker after hiring them. This, and the recent rise of informal learning have led me to speculate that higher education is really in the business of accreditation, not necessarily of teaching. If employers were free to hire and fire as they liked, they would not need our certification, people could educate themselves essentially for free and we might be out of business. So we should be thankful for employment legislation.

  • No grades = no learning
  • Posted by LM on January 6, 2010 at 7:00am EST

  • Perhaps this depends upon your field or your level. Where facts are essential-- e.g., math, learning a foreign language at the basic level -- students MUST get it right. There is no sentence without a verb, for example, and the present is not the past is not the future. This is something that students frequently do not know or want to know and thus bring on the carrot and the sticks. Similarly, I want an accountant who can do the math.
    Once at a more advanced level-- say, writing essays-- certain aspects may need encouragement for creativity, but the writing still needs to be readable. Cd U rd ths if it isn't spelled correctly? Would I be able to get an article published if it were not readable?
    In short, overgeneralizations R nt appropriate for grades, as for many things!

  • Grade inflation is bad - period
  • Posted by Dr. Pepper , Academic-in-training on January 6, 2010 at 9:45am EST

  • Interesting blog post, but the overall logic is flawed in its overgeneralization.

    I would say that any sort of grade manipulation - be it grade inflation, or grading on a curve - is bad as it doesn't accurately show what students can accomplish. Having (somewhat) concrete rubrics for grading, clear expectations, and a level playing field for all students is what teaching professionals should be striving for. As a student I've had classes where I knew that the instructor would give you an "A" no matter what you did. Initially I overproduced in these classes, until I saw what others were doing. In short, I was putting in more effort than others and getting the same grade. In subsequent classes (with other instructors) I did just as much as I needed to get by. An "A" is an "A", right?

    Many people point to the availability of services like SlideShare, YouTube and other online providers that can help students enrich their work - however as we see with any sort of technophelia (be it in education or business) people use the flashiness of the technology to "shock and awe" instead of producing great content that stands on it's own. As the old saying goes "excrement in - excrement out". Technology is a tool we can use, but if the underlying principles are not there on the student and/or the faculty end, we are not going to get much out of them.

    I've had other classes though where "A"s weren't given out like cereal box prizes. The average grade for (graduate level) classes was a B. In these classes most professors had mastery grading. They would assign bits of a larger assignment and they would hand it back to your with LOADS of comments and a preliminary grade (based on a rubric which we as students had access to). If you were happy with the grade you really did not need to do much else, if you wanted to improve, the sections of your work that were on shaky grounds were pointed out and the instructors would write in the margins things like "why?" and "Can you point to some research that proves this?" and "What about the theory of X or Y? Doesn't it disprove what you are saying? Why? Why not?" and so on. The point of the class wasn't to regurgitate what you learned, but to synthesize what you learned into a new and cogent argument that is your own. Did I get an A in those classes? You bet! Why? Because I was challenged, I knew what the rubric was and I was given opportunities to improve my work based on both peer (classmate) feedback and instructor feedback.

  • facts are stubborn things
  • Posted by ametroepes on January 6, 2010 at 9:45am EST

  • Would any of us be really comfortable with a doctor whose ideas about anatomy were based on group consensus.

    Most of my colleagues do have an overly negative view of undergraduate capability to recognize and interpret data. It is also true that my undergrads have an appalling tendency to disregard factual data and treat interpretation as a process of individualistic myth making.

    There is such a thing as individual mastery of a topic. In my experience, active learning approaches for general ed classes produce a wider group of semi-competent interlocutors, but no potential masters.

    I will concede that the letter system is very artificial. Perhaps what we need is a return to pass (competence), pass with distinction (rare, for true and exceptional mastery), and fail (incompetence).

  • thought our job...
  • Posted by Teacher on January 6, 2010 at 11:45am EST

  • I thought that part of my job as a teacher was to help get as many students as possible to excellent work? Most of us are now required to post and make sure we are accomplishing learning objectives. If Shouldn't my goal be to teach students well so as many as possible are doing A work? I can't do the work for them, but if they are doing the work and I'm a good teacher shouldn't it be possible for of the students in my class to get an A? For the important learning objectives I'm being ask to teach I'd better get as many of them to excellent as possible.
    The previous post recommending a 3-point grading system sounds like a great idea in the context that I am teaching. Too bad such change is likely not possible.

  • Grade Inflation
  • Posted by Perceptive Prof? on January 6, 2010 at 12:45pm EST

  • If one thinks that grade inflation in undergraduate courses is out of control, please balance it with a glimpse of the methods and measures that boards of trustees use in evaluating the president's annual performance. Dubious data, hyperbole, exaggerated praise are, I think, often the characteristics of these administrative evaluation exercises.

  • Master grading
  • Posted by Jane Fraser , Chair, Department of Engineering at Colorado State University-Pueblo on January 6, 2010 at 12:45pm EST

  • Some of my senior colleagues at my 2nd university job (now one of those major research universities all striving to be in the top 10), talked about Root Beer Grading: A&W. A student should master the required content (achieve an A) or Withdraw from the course and take it again. Or, better yet, instead of fixing the time (a semester or a quarter) and letting the learning vary (as reflected in grades), fix the required learning (an A) and let students take different amounts of time to achieve that mastery.
    On motivation, see Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards. Sounds like Pink is reploughing ground that Kohn did years ago.

  • Posted by Katharine , Undergraduate student on January 7, 2010 at 11:15am EST

  • Grades are actually, in my opinion, necessary. They define a standard to which a student must learn in order to have learned the topic satisfactorily at that level.

    What I do NOT think is very good, however, is the notion that one must compete for an A. If you do A work, you should get an A. If this means the average class grade is around an 80 because your class is full of good students, you'll have a good average class grade. Conversely, if you curve grades and people who shouldn't get an A do get an A, and you didn't curve and the average class grade was around a 60, you'll have a bad average class grade and that'll expose a problem that you can fix.

    People should get the grade commensurate with what they achieve.

  • grade inflation
  • Posted by Seth Steinberg on January 8, 2010 at 6:45am EST

  • I have nothing against grade inflation. Every one knows how to account for it. If you want someone who can give the correct change or read the order on the order slip, you now need an A student whereas a C student used to be able to handle these basic tasks. High schools have even punted on As with their AP course 0 to 5 scale to provide a new level of ranking. Eventually, they'll move to a 0 to 6 scale. Yawn!

    Personally I think creativity is overrated. It's easy to be creative, but actually creating something is hard work and requires thinking, doing, testing and an audience. It's this last that's most important. You can't get better if no one tells you how you are doing. If your goal is just to fantasize doing things, you can get by on raw creativity, but doing things takes a lot more.

  • assessment needs more than a grade
  • Posted by Andrew Bonamici , Associate University Librarian at University of Oregon on January 15, 2010 at 2:15pm EST

  • I serve on my university's Undergraduate Council, where we are having an extended conversation about the "culture of grading." This a more inclusive term than "grade inflation," and the language proves helpful in developing messages to students (and parents) about the differences between high school and college, and the importance of pursuing knowledge, not a grade.

    Joshua writes:

    "...many of our classes are moving towards an active learning approach where students are required to create something new..." and "...I'm betting that classes where students act as creators as opposed to consumers end up with much higher grades...."

    This reminded me of something that an architecture professor said in one of our council discussions about the culture of grading. In the UO's Department of Architecture, students haven't received grades for studio classes since the school was founded in 1914. The rationale is that in a design discipline like architecture, a letter grade in a studio class is of no consequence. Graduate schools and design firms base their decisions on a portfolio that allows them to assess the substance of a student's work. This got me thinking -- what are the "studio course" equivalents in other disciplines, and are those better left ungraded?

     

  • Why grades?
  • Posted by Marvin McConoughey on January 18, 2010 at 12:45pm EST

  • I disagree with much of the article. Grades should be used, assigned accurately, and be stringent enough to discriminate among student performance levels, no matter how brilliant the class. This is particularly true at the extreme right-tail level of math performance where small differences of ability can lead to large differences of innovative work.

  • Posted by Laura at Colorado State University, Distance Education on February 2, 2010 at 11:30pm EST

  • Students need to take responsibility for their own learning and not just their GPA. Regardless of what the standards are for an A/B/C/D/F, if students cannot apply their knowledge they've gained nothing. We need to refocus the conversation around learning and not around getting a grade.

    Continuing Education

Print
© Copyright 2011 Inside Higher Ed