by Barry A. Liebling
In higher education – colleges and graduate schools – how many students get “A” grades? Of course it varies across institutions from “only a few” to “nearly everyone.” But it has been widely reported that in recent years there has been rampant grade inflation. More students than ever are receiving high grades.
Some critics are lamenting this development and argue that it is a sign that students are not required to perform well. They believe that in many cases passing tests and delivering assignments of mediocre quality is sufficient to obtain the highest grade.
Recently there has been a push among some faculty members at Harvard to limit the number of “A” grades that are given to undergraduate students. The argument is that grade inflation is inherently undesirable, and an unacceptably large proportion of students are getting an “A” in their courses.
A large cohort of Harvard students are alarmed at the proposed policy and claim it would be unfair. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/harvard-grade-cap-a-proposal-gpa-7c921630
Pull back and consider what the essentials issues are in this controversy.
What is the meaning of an “A” grade? Two possibilities stand out. First, and vitally important, a high grade should signify that a student has demonstrated competence and mastery of a specific body of material. This is done by doing well on tests, producing written reports, and oral presentations.
If competency is to be measured in an academic course it is the responsibility of the teacher to construct assignments that are reliable and valid samples demonstrating that the student has a good grasp of the material.
Of course, students vary on how well they perform academically. But if achieving competence in a subject and demonstrating it to the teacher is the goal there is no natural limit on how many students succeed. In a given class perhaps everyone does well, it could be that some perform up to par and some do not, and it is possible that no student is able to handle the material.
So how many students should be given an “A” grade? As many students that demonstrate they understand and can effectively deal with the subject matter in the course. That can range from everybody to nobody.
From the teacher’s perspective what can go wrong? Plenty. The instructor could be incompetent and not knowledgeable in the topic of the course. Some teachers know the material but lack skill in communicating to students. The assignments in the course might be inappropriate measures – perhaps too easy, perhaps unreasonably difficult, or not relevant to assessing student capabilities. learning.
Now consider the second meaning of an “A” grade. It can signify that a student has performed better than most other students who took the course. This makes getting a grade a competitive game. In this scenario those who get the highest grades are the winners, and of necessity there must be students who are losers (they failed to get an “A”).
Many years ago when I was an undergraduate I took courses where there were more than 100 students in an auditorium-sized class. On several occasions the teacher would announce that we would be graded “on a curve”. This meant that those who had the highest average scores on the tests would get “A”s. I remember joking that it would be good if a lot of dumb students enrolled in the class because it would make it easier to get a high grade.
Notice that if the standards for getting an “A” are announced in advance and there is a large number of students taking a course, the distribution of grades is likely to be normally distributed. Some students will do very well, some will do poorly, and a lot will be somewhere in the middle. But in this situation the students are not necessarily in competition with one another. They are not given an incentive to be fixated on how well their peers are doing or to resent those who are performing well.
For several years I have been teaching management and quantitative analysis to MBA students at a graduate school of business. I announce at the beginning of a course what all the assignments are, how they will be graded, and I offer to help students with the material if they have difficulties. I inform my students that I hope they all get a high grade in my course because it will signify that they mastered the subject (and also that I did a good job as a teacher). Historically more than half of my students receive an “A” grade, and I would be pleased if more of them did. But of course, no matter how much they are encouraged some students do not perform well.
Go back to the proposal to limit “A” grades of undergraduates at Harvard. The faculty members who are pushing this policy should focus on assuring that the requirements for a high grade are fair and stringent. They should craft policies that require students to demonstrate acceptable levels of competence in order to receive an “A”. The proportion of high grades awarded to students should not be an issue.
*** See other entries at AlertMindPublishing.com in “Monthly Columns.” ***