Follows an earlier posting here about grade inflation at Harvard: http://www.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/04/19/harvard.grade.inflation.ap/index.html
I hope that the wheel on grade inflation soon turns to deflation not just at Harvard but for all instutions. I have had many a student complain about B and B- grades most often the reason is because it hurts their A Average GPA. Many students take a class and expect to receive an A and not earn an A. John
Twenty-five years ago when I began teaching at the college level the supposition was that you entered the class with a 0 and must earn an "A". The thought now is that you enter the class with an "A" and if you attend most of the sessions and remain semi-conscious you receive the "A". My, how things change!
I was talking to a retired professor the other day. He said, in effect, "But the solution is so simple. Keep on inflating grades, if that is what seems necessary, but report the class, departmental, and/or school grade averages along with the individual grade, on the transcript. Thus an evaluator would be able to compare, for instance, an "A-" in a class where that was the average grade -- or from a school, like Harvard, where more than 50% of the grades are at that level or higher -- with a situation where A- put a student in the top 10% in the class, department, or school." Made sense to me.
Evaluation and the Academy: Are We Doing the Right Thing? Good article by Henry Rosovsky and Matthew Hartley on the grade inflation phenomenon in the U.S.
Hmmmmm....... It appears Hah-vahd and UoPhx are in the same league...... Wonder which school is more insulted by that?
. . . and so a year later here's a small article in Harvard Magazine describing some of the steps being taken to combat grade inflation in that University . . . http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/050344.html Jack
Like me. I don't like getting a B. But our program is almost over and soon we will have M.A. degrees.
I agree, it does make sense. The one addition I would like to see in this solution is to report a metric like the standard deviation or percentile rank so you have some idea of where the student loads in the distribution.
