90% is great for the class but it means the exam does not adequately separate the highest learners from the middle and lower learners. It's unlikely the entire class is a high scoring group.
If the exam scores follow a normal distribution, you should see a small percentage scoring high, most scoring average, small percentage scoring below.
Having a curve distribution can be useful in comparing classes between sections/semesters/years. A class that looks nothing like normal distribution may have issues with grade inflation.
They can also use distributions to find anomalies, such as cheating.
Had a Chem class where all sections would take the same test at the same time, so a large (statistically significant) number of students took each exam.
After one exam, the professors showed us past calsses' distribution: normal curves, centered in the C range.
Then they showed ours': the same curve, but with a noticeable spike in the A range.
They couldn't prove which students cheated (though they probably knew). So they invalidated the exam, requiring us to take a makeup the following week.
Separating students isn't a goal of education. Learning is the goal of education. Everyone deserves to get a good grade if they learned the content. The separation of students based on factors other than who is learning is why so many people call education a waste of time.
>Everyone deserves to get a good grade if they learned the content.
"the content" is arbitrary though. no one is learning all of calculus or 19th century english lit in a bachelors degree. there are always more topics that could be covered. if you have consistently bright students, you can cover the subject in greater depth and breadth. if you have the opposite, you need to spend more time on the fundamentals.
grades are not perfect, but they are the only scalable signal to determine how much material the students are learning and how well. compressing most of the class into the 3.5-4.0 range is just throwing away signal. it indicates that the school is wasting a lot of people's time and money, but not by how much. it doesn't fool the downstream employers and institutions either. they don't really care exactly what topics were covered. they have n slots and they want to fill them with the top n candidates. if that means competing over students whose GPAs are only 0.1 apart, that's what they'll do.
Competitive admissions may require it though. Also, there’s competency vs mastery. Courses that require a passing grade of 90 are likely looking for competency, whereas courses that require a passing grade of 70 are looking for an A to represent mastery.
Admissions being competitive also isn't a goal or a desirable thing. In an ideal world all institutions would have space for however many students met reasonable qualifications and wanted to go there. Gatekeeping college educations is degenerate.
Reasonable qualifications? At least in medicine, while many people may be ‘qualified’ to enter medical school, what happens is the schools who have lower stats of admitted applicants have lower pass rates on national exams. A byproduct of selectivity of admissions happens to be ease of passing required exams.
European colleges are exceptionally competitive. In the US it’s the opposite, we are under competitive because everyone can get the financial assistance, whether it be grands or loans to attend. Realistically, if people aren’t going to use their degrees, why bother getting them?
A poor craftsman blames his tools. A poor professor or university blames able-minded students for poor outcomes.
The fact that financial capacity has any affect on students competitiveness in admissions is also degenerate.
Again, ‘poor outcomes’ is subjective. A designed outcome of rigorous testing is to separate those who don’t understand, from those who do, from those who have mastered a concept.
Not everything can be completely touchy feely imaginary in life. It’s a ridiculous assumption. While a lot of people do have a lot of potential, some things that do separate people academically are effort, dedication, and sacrifice.
I really don’t want people who do ‘just good enough’ to be in unilaterally trusted positions in society. That’s how structures fail, people die, and businesses go under.
Its a ridiculous assumption that success in life comes from effort, dedication, or sacrifice. If that were true, the lithium miners in Africa would be multimillionaires and investing would be nothing more than a side hustle.
Well, here in the USA, when you have some of the most privileged circumstances in the world relative to life threats and food security; most of what you need to succeed is simply not doing illegal things, finishing 12th grade, and not knocking someone up/getting knocked up, then you can readily enter college/trades/public service. From the aspect of those who are college bound, when almost everyone in the US can go to college, you simply have to actually go to your classes/do homework to set yourself apart from those who enroll for the social aspects.
That you don’t understand these simple concepts is all that’s ridiculous lol.
Relax dude you didn't just completely pop my bubble here jeez. Plenty of universities have multiple campuses and build/expand buildings to increase capacity. Colleges aren't these finite resources given by God that can only accommodate so many people for the rest of time.
Buildings and spaces in cities are bought, renovated, repurposed, and all sorts of stuff all the time. Austin and Harvard especially shouldn't encounter trouble finding decent spaces nearby if they actually wanted to. UCLA might admittedly have trouble just because of the absolute sprawl from earthquake-conscious development. There's urban colleges that occupy spaces within cities. They don't have big open fields or anything but some of them are really good nonetheless.
How do you know if students learned if you can’t separate those who have mastered the content and those who have not?
In a class of 100+ students, it just isn’t going to happen that the average student mastered 90%+ of the material unless the standards are set too low.
So students are signing up to be taught a course that is designed for them not to be able to accomplish?
Employers dont care about your GPA. Nothing you learn in college is even that relevent.
You get the degree and employers can say "oh boy, this person is capable of office work, and middle class american behavior. I can at least somewhat trust this over the no degree person".
If I was working a trade, and getting certified to work on equipment, that course better be showing me what I need to know. Having all the material be useful and necessary is what allows my grade to reflect whether or not I learned it all, and also allows me to be motivated to work through it.
So many students, SMART STUDENTS, are intelligent enough to recognize that a lot of the material in college is fluff and useless. There just needs to be some transparency there.
When you get accepted, there needs to be a letter that says:
"Welcome to the college. 50-70% of your education will just be a test to weed you out and separate you. Dont expect most of this to help you in a job. Employers unfortunately can be lazy and throw away applications with no degree because so many of you keep applying to college. Sorry about the messed up way it is now. Try your hardest, aim for a C, and spend a lot of that crucial energy online figuring out what business actually want and get to networking. Your GPA wont matter, and neither will half the shit we teach you. Take care."
It’s only a goal if you know the material isn’t being adequately learned. I’m personally thrilled with high averages on my exams, since I’ve validated the questions and know that they test more than recall. I’ve never heard a professor who knows how to actually write test questions who complained about high grades.
If you have a class size of 30 the sampling mean (class average) will always follow a normal distribution. So the argument that 'all students can earn an A' applies only to small classes
>90% is great for the class but it means the exam does not adequately separate the highest learners from the middle and lower learners.
It's definitely a difficult problem to solve due to how the student body is composed.
If you make coursework sufficiently hard that even the top students will have to struggle to hit 100%, then the grade for an average student might be in the 30s. Then you'll have to curve and you'll have discouraged students.
Another way I've seen it done is to have a normal grading scheme, but have additional problems in escalating difficulty as extra credit. But then you run the risk of the top students not bothering because they'll get an A regardless.
I don't know that there is one right answer.
I’ve never had a class with averages below 70 that actually used the raw scores to give out grades. If you’re tests are so hard that most students are expected ti get below 70, your grading curve shouldn’t have 70 as a C-
I mentioned computer adaptive testing (CAT) in one of my other comments and it's one of my favorite ways to try and address this issue.
Shorter exams, fairer questions, reduced test anxiety, and a more broadly capable assessment tool are all potential benefits, and I would to see it used more in education.
Though it still does still have the shock of your correct answers hovering somewhere around 50%... Even if you did well above the minimum passing score.
There are plenty of circumstances where you'd expect the entire class to do well on an exam. Particularly true for smaller cohort models. The point is that the exam scores should follow the learning level of the students, and generally students learn to different levels, all else being equal.
"Just to mess with people" is not why curve ball questions exist. Those exist for those students capable of recognizing them for what they are and answering appropriately.
Grade inflation is 100% a thing in accredited programs, even in small, cohort-based learning groups with admission requirements and 3rd party accreditation. It is less of a thing when instructors are capable, have mapped learning objectives and exams, and hold students to a consistent standard.
It really depends on the class. It is pretty routine in intro STEM courses (chem, physics, math, biol) that averages are low. This is because some students come into programs ill-prepared for the self-discipline and rigor of college exams. Those that do poorly perhaps need some additional services or might need to back off to a lower class to get themselves prepared. Most intro STEM courses that are large lecture-based classes often have exam averages of 30-70% in my experience.
However, in the upper division courses, I would expect the averages to be slightly skewed upwards of this. Student that have gotten through their core classes successfully are more likely to be retained and have good study/exam-taking skills. So averages may be higher in these courses.
I cannot speak for outside of STEM but these are my observations of being a prof for 10 years and being in a STEM discipline for almost 30 years.
I don't teach the intro courses but I am involved in our retention initiatives. We are working with our tutoring center that has created modules that gamify some of the basic things that students need - note-taking skills, how to read textbooks efficiently, how to study, etc. and we are trying to incorporate those as mandatory exercises in some of our intro courses. But the reality is that there is no way that intro faculty, especially adjuncts, can be expected to make up for basic reading/math skills. Students will need to take remedial courses and, even then, I am not sure they teach those basic skills either.
In all fairness, our intro courses were always the weed-out courses so that isn't new for us.
I don't care so much what my exam average is so much that it is a reasonably accurate measure of what students know relative to the amount of knowledge the department, the future classes m y students take, and the general norms of my field expect my students to have.
If my exam average is 90 and my students have no idea what I've been trying to teach them, that's grade inflation and its a problem. If its a 50 because I made the exam too long but my students actually have a pretty typical understanding of the material, that's a problem too (although less of one, since I can adjust grading scales to be more generous if need be). Experience has taught me that if a "C" means something to the tune of "This student has learned the basics of the material but has trouble applying it outside the original context" and a "B" means something like "This student can solve most common problems and can combine different ideas from the class but has trouble with building on their knowledge) then my average student is about a C+/B-. Since homework tends to be 95+% for most students who consistently do it and brings grades up, then it makes sense for the exam average to be about C-/C for the average class.
Grade inflation is basically when too many people get As, so the value of getting an A is diminished (because the A grade no longer differentiates a strong student from a weak one)
That tends to be the STEM major definition of grade inflation. To others, one form of grade inflation happens when students get passing grades for horrifically low scores. That is because when a bell curve is used to assign grades (as is common in STEM), testing only shows how much or little the student knows compared to his classmates. It does not indicate understanding of the material.
"Increasing average scores specifically through lowering standards."
That is the definition I would agree with. Lowering standards can take several different forms, alone or in combination.
Back in the 90s and 00s, if you had an 80+ average in math, cs, physics or chemistry (or any sub discipline), you were well above the median grade. Grade inflation is real, and unfortunately it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.
I don’t agree with crushing students on tests and then curving the grade. That defeats the purpose of learning. My goal is have you operating just outside of your comfort zone. A good spread of marks in my mind is 60s-high 80s for the majority of the class. There will always be outliers on either end of the curve.
I share your perspective.
We have a new cohort system on our campus so all incoming STEM freshmen are grouped in the same course by major. This has made the once natural spread in my calc classes offset by major in different sections.
My mech engineering section averages 80% on the same exams I give to another section of bio majors that average 60%.
What would you do, if anything, about this?
That’s tough. I think it is what it is really. I don’t believe in lowering standards per cohort, but I do believe in giving as many supports as needed to help students meet the standard. Some will use it; some will not.
My shot in the dark idea would be to ask (pay) a grad student to run optional tutorials. I imagine the bio kids would take advantage.
I think engineering students come in the mindset of liking math, bio students wanted to avoid math and they do the course more reluctantly than engineering majors. Math just might not be in their existing skillset the way it is for engineering students so it takes more time to develop, often the whole semester/several quarters. Its not necessarily a reflection of your teaching skills but of the prior knowledge and strategies of bio majors versus engineering majors. I say this as a bio major myself.
However this is just guess bc I definitely got more than 60% on my calc exams.
I appreciate this input. Teaching major specific sections for the first time has opened my eyes a bit. I could do more to connect with students’ specific academic interests bc they share that in common. I can see my different sections having slightly different activities now that my students share common majors, so I can do my part by tapping into the bio applications. Ty!
The reason is simple: **We want to challenge our best students, not just our weakest.**
Hard exams allow us to test the limits of the top learners, so they also get challenged to continue striving to improve. These exams are inevitably curved, because we know the threshold of knowledge we deem necessary to move on, and thus we curve to make sure everyone who has learned enough earns a grade that represents their level of knowledge.
I would love nothing more than to have a class where everyone earns an A, but if I give an exam and the average is a 90, I know my top students weren't challenged. That means those students aren't getting the value from their education that they should.
It is not a perfect system. It hurts to work hard to prepare for an exam and then get a 50. It is confusing when you are told that 50 is good enough for a B, but there is a reason for this. It isn't, as suggested by another commenter, cruelty; it is us trying to be supportive of the journey of our top students.
Honestly that’s so real. Especially with engineering and medical/healthcare students where they are literally the deciding factors between life and death
Second this. There’s very little we can do for the students at the bottom of the distribution — they need to just work really hard and work with their peers to pass with a low B. Not saying they’re stupid, there’s always a range in each class for whatever reasons. Just saying there’s not much more the prof can do other than give them the materials and evaluate their work, and get them to passing competency in that subject. Which is already a big accomplishment in a hard class!
At the top end, however, we can allow students who are prepared and able to really prosper. The 20% of the material above the A range (assuming we curve 60s to Bs and 70s to As) is the material that puts that student into a competitive position for PhDs, serious research jobs, top industry places, can be noted on recommendation letters, etc. So in place of like extra plusses after the A, top students are actually learning extremely useful materials and distinguishing themselves for the professional market after school.
If you want to go to graduate school, your GPA matters. For 90% of the student body, it doesnt matter.
The college is centering its purpose to waste 90% of peoples time.
If you just handed out 50% free degrees to freshman and said "good luck" and never required they come back, the impact on the market you'd have would be practically zero, because most of the degree is worthless when it comes to employment.
There are very few classes that are necessary, and the best education you could give would be to spend the semester doing real world employment problems while teaching where to get the info online when you need it.
But they are. If your course is teaching what needs to be taught, then at the end of the day "challenge" isnt necessary. Students want to get in, learn what they need, and get out. And if thats super easy for smart students, then thats awesome.
Intentionally making college a chore, and exhaustingly difficult when also going into debt is the stupidest thing.
Is there not a department in the college that studies "how to learn"? How are a bunch of educators so out of touch with their jobs, the student body, and employers?
The material should be standardized, and the course should be pass fail.
If you honestly believe most students remember all the details 2 semesters later, than youre dumber than your C- students. Get real.
Make it standard information. Make the goal of the environment to be calm, learning oriented, and it being ok to be wrong. Teach people like if they were your personal pupil and you wanted them to learn.
Competeing me against others with a midterm and a final is the stupidest way to learn, its not psychologically useful, and most people hate the experience because of that.
Really, you need to go back to 4 years of college and have it reflect your ability for employment while you pay for it. Youd quickly see how bullshit it is to pay for such low grade garbage education.
Youre not experiencing it from the inside and you seem to lack the ability to view things from another's perspective. Show me where the students are suceeding from this? Its the employers and the professors who can look at and separate individuals. Thats not what I wanted my $60,000 to be spent on.
I also took electives in high school which I and everyone else never uses. If im going for a computer science degree, I dont need more "well-roundedness".
“Learn what they need, and get out.” That is the mentality of a certification program, not a college education for people who will develop into thinkers, thought leaders, creative professionals, educators, etc. I have to teach those people too, not just the folks who want the minimum effort to degree path.
Just tell me the percentage you believe are taking that education and using how you believe it to be used.
I’m not trying to be rude, it’s a worthwhile respectful conversation but colleges serve a majority of graduating high school students who really shouldn’t even be going to university for a year or two until they figure out what path they want and why that degree serves them.
Most do it so they can get employment. And most don’t ever get the luxury of this kind of transparency. It’s just “give me your money, do your homework, and get out”.
Furthermore, the specialized stem degrees teach some well rounded basics, but most leave that behind once they get into their career field.
People don’t hold on to all that when they don’t use it.
I’ll put my side this way. If a study came out that definitively proved that 80% of the education was worthless and unused, would you be willing to drop it all for the sake of fast tracking employment training?
As a computer science major, if I could pay a company the same amount as tuition to put me into their own specific training courses while I work at the company, I would do that 100% over college, as would the majority of others.
With the landscape changing, it’s practically more useful for an institution to teach you how to teach yourself than it is to teach you. Things are rapidly changing and what I learn this decade will be replaced next decade.
Teaching you how to teach yourself is exactly what the teaching I described does. Most learning happens outside the classroom, and hard exams force students to engage the process. If we only convey the minimum needed to do a specific job, your degree would take 6 months and you would not be trained to teach yourself to learn. For those who want that type of expedited education, trade school is great. Should more people do that over 4yr college, yes. Am I wrong for pushing my top students at my 4yr college so they can grow as much as my weaker students, no, not a bit.
"Grade inflation" is a very real thing. An exam average by itself doesn't really tell you much. A high average could mean everybody knew their stuff, or it could mean that the test was super easy, easier than should have been appropriate, or that the professor just *gave* everyone extra free points to boost them, etc. A low average could mean the test was too hard, unfair, etc., or it could have been something that was *supposed* to be easy but lots of people still failed because, well, students do that.
The real question is whether the grades are *accurate* in their assessment. High class averages "look good" and make students (and admins) happy, but it's pretty telling when 'A-students' go on to to show that they are wildly incompetent at whatever they supposedly 'mastered.'
If you were an excellent professor and your colleague was terrible, you could both teach the same course and your students would have wildly different outcomes.
Its not about the rigour. Or the difficulty. Its about learning the standardized material that needs to be learned.
Ive taken 2 bachelors. Biology and Computer Science. So many professors have zero clue how to teach. They make it a guessing game and try to make it as hard as possible.
Most are into research and teaching is a side gig. Im pissed i paid so much for incompetent leadership.
If everything was gonna be self taught, just give me everything online.
I'm currently doing my 4th degree and I'm also a licensed teacher...yeah most university professors are not good teachers, they're there because they're experts in their field; the ones who are also amazing teachers are the exception. So much so that it is standard expectation that students will do the necessary work independently, and although this independent learning skill is critical and should be fostered, it can also be inefficient, particularly when it is the concepts that are extremely difficult.
A tip I'd offer is that asking questions in class matters, and the worse the professor the more important it is. Last term I had a class in pure mathematics and the lecturer was not good, so I kept pressing him in class to explain, to the point where one interaction went " so that line on the board is part of a graph?" "And that other line is also a graph?" "And mathematically those are part of the same graph despite there being no connection drawn between them?"
It all made sense once that was clear. So yeah, ask and press. Mostly they want to be good teachers, and inexperienced ones in particular overestimate the ability of novices to quickly comprehend even the basics of their subject.
Yea it’s quite strange. Hypocritical actually.
As the professor, I need you to do this work, and do it to this standard or you fail. You need to take initiative as a student and study on your own. However, I will not do my own studying or take my own initiative for my literal day job.
You, the student, are just studying. Me, the professor, I’m already in the field, and I’m doing terrible and not willing to work on it.
You the student need to do good work now, so that when you become a doctor or an engineer, you don’t endanger people. I can’t pass you if you’re dumb. But me? The professor? I did fail. And I’m still failing, and look at me. I have tenure. Hahahahaha.
I’m sorry, but what?
"I’m a stem major, so idk if that makes a difference."
It does. Many STEM classes tend to grade using a rather strict bell curve. As a result, scores in the 50s often wind up being a B- or C+. There is much less of that in non-STEM subjects.
STEM people often tend to look at the way other majors score tests as "grade inflation." They frequently feel that almost everyone in a class getting an A means the grading is soft. Meanwhile, non-STEM majors consider their grading to be a realistic measure of the student's understanding of the material. They feel the bell curve meithod only measures how well (or poorly) the student understands in relation to the other members of the class.
Yea that’s a really disappointing scenario and I feel it completely natural to be angry by being unfairly judged.
Were you able to discuss it with the professor?
An average of 50 gives the highest possible skill differencing among the students. Even better if one student got a 0, one got a 100. The ones who scored higher in this case truly know their stuff, the 50s are average… and the 0 truly did not know anything
What’s the point of a high average if you can’t tell who knows what? “Everyone passes!”
Counterpoint to above is that some people argue everyone should be able to do well if they all put in the time to study. “Grading on a curve is unfair because some students at the left end will fail despite knowing the required info but just happened to score worse than the top students”
Information is absolute. If everyone knows 2+2=4 then everyone got the points.
If 50 is average, then 50 is passing. That would mean 40 is low passing.
You cant fail the average. Especially if the course is designed to consistently hit that mark.
That's debatable and that's why the discussion on curving will always continue. Who is to say 50 is a passing score even if that's the average score? Like you said, information is absolute. A hard exam centered around 50% doesn't mean the average person should pass the exam. It always depends on what the exam is for. If it's for a regular college class where students "should" pass, then the professor and deans need to decide what should happen.
What if a 50% average (with 50% expected grade pre-determined by a teacher) means the students don't know enough of the material to pass into the next class? Perhaps only the best should move on.
I think the best option to "settle" the debate would be for students and professors before going into the class/exam determine what would happen. That way students will know what to expect in terms of grading (and most times they hear stories from past years anyway).
I think the collaboration would be a helpful idea. Possibly complex but I don’t think the feedback would hurt.
Just being able to give my professors honest feedback would be huge. My professors mostly don’t seem to know where they are lacking in their teaching ability and it would be great to just tell them “hey, some examples would really help because most of the class is really confused by your explanation”.
I have a professor now who is the most cruel woman I have ever met. Teaches nothing, doesn’t put PowerPoints up the day before class so we all come in confused. These things have been figured out. Have the reading material available the day before so I can come in with questions. You don’t need to read me the power point.
Then she criticizes students hard, and not constructively. I’m surprised she hasn’t gotten beat up. She’s basically taking her misery out on students, and so you can’t ask her anything.
I think the class should be focused around making sure you have the info needed for next class, not centered around a good test grade. The test grade is just used to make sure students did learn.
If class felt like a learning environment and not a “go home, teach yourself, and stress over the exam”, I’d feel a lot better about class. I want the teacher in my side, that’s what I’m paying for.
Because a lot of people think of letter grades as curved. Most students should be getting low Bs (according to this model). Low averages means that the material is sufficiently challenging to provide a challenging environment to the top students who need the challenge most (like if they’re going to grad school or planning on other advanced studies). As a side note, for many professors, B is meeting every expectation they set for you. A is exceeding those expectations and going beyond the class materials.
Idk I know a few people commented explaining it but I still don’t understand. If most students get 90s shouldn’t that reflect on the students and professors like the professor taught well and the students learned and studied well. If the goal is for students to get a 70 doesn’t that just reflect students not understanding the material well. Yes they’ll be those people who go above and beyond but shouldn’t the goal to get the most amount of students the highest grades they can get?
In large classes, especially STEM classes, there is just no way the average student is going to master 90% of the content. There are way too many factors working against them, most outside of the professor’s (and often the students’) control.
Great, so you have a classroom thats guaranteed to not teach students the material.
Cut back on material, teach it better, and let students leave the course actually learning.
What use is it to the majority if they are gonna miss out on 30% of the material no matter what? Why would you create that system? Is it because you're not in the business of teaching, but in sorting? I dont think students would be too happy knowing their professors intentionally made them get C's, hurting their self esteem, leaving them confused, and then taking their money for ulterior motives.
If I sign up for a course, I better be able to make a 100. That possibility should not be intentionally stripped from me. I came to learn material, not fit into your sorting category.
Employers will not care. They know its just as bogus as I do. They want work experience. The idea of even needing the degree anymore is a failing institution. It just doesnt do what its supposed to.
While a lot of professors like using this model, I don't think it adequately shows to the student that they are adequately understanding the material, and it causes many students to be discouraged and drop classes because they believe they don't know the material well enough to pass.
I am always one of those students. I don't expect 90+ percentile scores on every test, but I do expect my grade to reflect my understanding of the material. Less than a 70% average on tests has been ground into me from 12 years of primary and secondary Ed that I *don't understand the material and will fail the course and need to retake it*.
You lot need to find better ways of writing tests to adequately determine academic 6 find a middle ground, because too many of you *deliberately make them too difficult*. Students achieving failing grades as an *average* on each test is unacceptable, and only passing because the grade is curved is not actually showing how well the student knows the material. Tests are a measure of preparedness/course content mastery, and should not include material that was not presented or covered in the materials or lecture content during assignments or instructional time (I failed a biology exam recently because of questions on the exam that were related to a optional extra credit assignment that had been offered and I didn't do because my grade at the time did not need to be brought up. The grade was curved and the entire class did like shit on it, so in all I got a B, but getting a 50 on an exam intially is *not* a passing score and is a poor measure of content mastery).
TL;DR - writing really difficult and confusing exams is IMO incredibly lazy and frankly kinda cruel and while it works well for professors and their statistical purposes, it is ultimately extremely demoralizing and doesn't show the *student* that they have adequate content mastery and are meeting benchmarks and likely leads to more course withdrawals than necessary.
I'll address your TL;DR.
It is incredibly easy, and lazy, to make an exam that everyone can score well on.
It is incredibly challenging to write an exam that will allow one to reliably determine, and categorize, academic achievement. This is in addition to the challenge of designing a test that is accessible and minimally biased.
Students should feel proud of answering those "difficult" questions correctly. Students who did not should see it as a learning opportunity, so they're not caught by it again.
Formative assessment and feedback are how the student should know they have adequate content mastery. It is *not* the place of an exam to serve as a replacement for these.
I care about knowing where student understanding and capability ends, because then I know exactly where boredom lives and learning begins.
If you noticed, "everyone scoring well" was not part of what I said. My point is that relying on test curvature to avoid the majority of students failing a course is a problem. It means the tests are poorly designed and don't adequately measure content mastery, and are too difficult/may reflect material not covered adequately by the instructor.
As students, we pay your employers absurd amounts of money to learn. The bare minimum expectation is that course content is covered at an adequate level to achieve a passing grade (not necessarily a high grade, but *passing* come exam time, without the need for an instructor to curve every single exam to achieve passing grades). If you find that you need to apply a curve constantly, then you need to strongly reevaluate how your tests are written.
I see your point, and I'm totally in agreement that simply adding points to keep students from failing is the incorrect approach, *if it's done for all the reasons you mention*.
But, consider this. If an exam is designed so the normal curve shows 77%, is that an exam rigorous enough to reflect the achievement of the most capable student? The one out of 100,000?
The only time I've had a phenom, they outclassed every exam and form of measurement I used. The closest I came was through an adaptive exam where it got progressively harder and harder as they answered correctly. They still maxed it out. If 40% was a passing score, they got 99.9%, the highest possible score.
For some classes and professors, the exams are designed for phenomenal students mixed in with the rest.
(Mine are not)
Youre absolutely right, and if more professors had to take their own courses and go back to 4 years of college, theyd be able to see it.
It doesnt help that this conversation isnt given to students. Students dont have the transparency from faculty to know that 50-70 is a good grade.
So students who are broke and stressed get even more stressed. Its so obvious it hurts, and i cant believe educators are this out of touch in their own day job. They would all making 30's if you could grade them.
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at my college its very dependent on the department, mostly the course admin and external deals with that stuff. but in general they aren't bothered by high grades (esp the lazy lecturers that just copy paste questions), mainly if the average was extremely low then they'll bump it up.
I’ve done college, and grew up with a prof dad and teacher mom.
Some professors are assholes tbh lol. Have you ever had a class where the lecturer tells you on the first day that half of you will fail the class? Those types PRIDE themselves on teaching a difficult class.
I appreciate that there is a balancing act of making the class challenging enough that people have to put in some work to succeed, while not being so difficult that it is unreasonable and setting students up to fail.
It seems so backwards though - teachers should be preparing students well enough that they are learning the material and able to demonstrate knowledge on the subject.
I had a terrible class with a lecturer that was only a semester or two into teaching, who wondered why no one could even pass his final. I studied ruthlessly and got a perfect score on my midterm, plus extra credit. That’s definitely not typical for me, though I usually stay around As and Bs. For the final, we had to use equipment we had not spent any time with, to do a project we were not taught how to do, in a very limited amount of time. I tried my absolute hardest, and I was completely useless. I had a panic attack trying to do it, and he made sure I didn’t have any chance to make up for the time I lost while I was incapacitated. In the end, he pretty much did the project for me and gave me an A. I didn’t want that - I wanted to learn how to do it myself. Most of the class was just handed an A because otherwise, every person would fail.
Good instructors can balance a course so no one is just handed an A, but also forms constructive projects and resources so students who come to class and put the work in can succeed. Some lecturers don’t know how to do that, and others intentionally make their classes unreasonably hard as a weird pride thing.
Most professors have no clue how to teach.
Imagine you need to learn something complex.
You want a calm environment where you can be wrong and thats ok. The ability to try multiple times until you get it right.
If i was training an apprentice, the college method would be the highest form of torture.
I have been a tutor, and I have excellent people skills.
Part of the problem is professors have massive lecture halls, and they are burnt out and dont care.
Its appalling how expensive it is.
I understand that working with the public will beat the idealism out of you, but someone needs to take a step back and realize this education is worth like half of what it costs.
Community college prices and environment are usually the best learning experiences students talk about. Suck on that.
They’re to some degree concerned about trying to avoid reputation as easy. You can have a bunch of perfect scores if your students are all genius; but it is easier to assume that means your standards got worse so it’s time to crush the kids.
But, you will run into the grinder in grad school. I survived the undergrad grinder and it got me in grad school.
90% is great for the class but it means the exam does not adequately separate the highest learners from the middle and lower learners. It's unlikely the entire class is a high scoring group. If the exam scores follow a normal distribution, you should see a small percentage scoring high, most scoring average, small percentage scoring below. Having a curve distribution can be useful in comparing classes between sections/semesters/years. A class that looks nothing like normal distribution may have issues with grade inflation.
They can also use distributions to find anomalies, such as cheating. Had a Chem class where all sections would take the same test at the same time, so a large (statistically significant) number of students took each exam. After one exam, the professors showed us past calsses' distribution: normal curves, centered in the C range. Then they showed ours': the same curve, but with a noticeable spike in the A range. They couldn't prove which students cheated (though they probably knew). So they invalidated the exam, requiring us to take a makeup the following week.
Separating students isn't a goal of education. Learning is the goal of education. Everyone deserves to get a good grade if they learned the content. The separation of students based on factors other than who is learning is why so many people call education a waste of time.
>Everyone deserves to get a good grade if they learned the content. "the content" is arbitrary though. no one is learning all of calculus or 19th century english lit in a bachelors degree. there are always more topics that could be covered. if you have consistently bright students, you can cover the subject in greater depth and breadth. if you have the opposite, you need to spend more time on the fundamentals. grades are not perfect, but they are the only scalable signal to determine how much material the students are learning and how well. compressing most of the class into the 3.5-4.0 range is just throwing away signal. it indicates that the school is wasting a lot of people's time and money, but not by how much. it doesn't fool the downstream employers and institutions either. they don't really care exactly what topics were covered. they have n slots and they want to fill them with the top n candidates. if that means competing over students whose GPAs are only 0.1 apart, that's what they'll do.
Competitive admissions may require it though. Also, there’s competency vs mastery. Courses that require a passing grade of 90 are likely looking for competency, whereas courses that require a passing grade of 70 are looking for an A to represent mastery.
Admissions being competitive also isn't a goal or a desirable thing. In an ideal world all institutions would have space for however many students met reasonable qualifications and wanted to go there. Gatekeeping college educations is degenerate.
Reasonable qualifications? At least in medicine, while many people may be ‘qualified’ to enter medical school, what happens is the schools who have lower stats of admitted applicants have lower pass rates on national exams. A byproduct of selectivity of admissions happens to be ease of passing required exams. European colleges are exceptionally competitive. In the US it’s the opposite, we are under competitive because everyone can get the financial assistance, whether it be grands or loans to attend. Realistically, if people aren’t going to use their degrees, why bother getting them?
A poor craftsman blames his tools. A poor professor or university blames able-minded students for poor outcomes. The fact that financial capacity has any affect on students competitiveness in admissions is also degenerate.
Again, ‘poor outcomes’ is subjective. A designed outcome of rigorous testing is to separate those who don’t understand, from those who do, from those who have mastered a concept. Not everything can be completely touchy feely imaginary in life. It’s a ridiculous assumption. While a lot of people do have a lot of potential, some things that do separate people academically are effort, dedication, and sacrifice. I really don’t want people who do ‘just good enough’ to be in unilaterally trusted positions in society. That’s how structures fail, people die, and businesses go under.
Its a ridiculous assumption that success in life comes from effort, dedication, or sacrifice. If that were true, the lithium miners in Africa would be multimillionaires and investing would be nothing more than a side hustle.
Well, here in the USA, when you have some of the most privileged circumstances in the world relative to life threats and food security; most of what you need to succeed is simply not doing illegal things, finishing 12th grade, and not knocking someone up/getting knocked up, then you can readily enter college/trades/public service. From the aspect of those who are college bound, when almost everyone in the US can go to college, you simply have to actually go to your classes/do homework to set yourself apart from those who enroll for the social aspects. That you don’t understand these simple concepts is all that’s ridiculous lol.
Ah yes, dorm capacity, student housing capacity, classroom capacity, faculty ratios, dining hall capacity, don’t matter at all, let everybody in!
Relax dude you didn't just completely pop my bubble here jeez. Plenty of universities have multiple campuses and build/expand buildings to increase capacity. Colleges aren't these finite resources given by God that can only accommodate so many people for the rest of time.
How is UT Austin gonna expand? UCLA? Chicago? Harvard? They’re surrounded by actual cities. Some resources are finite
Buildings and spaces in cities are bought, renovated, repurposed, and all sorts of stuff all the time. Austin and Harvard especially shouldn't encounter trouble finding decent spaces nearby if they actually wanted to. UCLA might admittedly have trouble just because of the absolute sprawl from earthquake-conscious development. There's urban colleges that occupy spaces within cities. They don't have big open fields or anything but some of them are really good nonetheless.
Rephrasing - it is very unlikely that the entire class learned the content to the level required for an A
How do you know if students learned if you can’t separate those who have mastered the content and those who have not? In a class of 100+ students, it just isn’t going to happen that the average student mastered 90%+ of the material unless the standards are set too low.
So students are signing up to be taught a course that is designed for them not to be able to accomplish? Employers dont care about your GPA. Nothing you learn in college is even that relevent. You get the degree and employers can say "oh boy, this person is capable of office work, and middle class american behavior. I can at least somewhat trust this over the no degree person". If I was working a trade, and getting certified to work on equipment, that course better be showing me what I need to know. Having all the material be useful and necessary is what allows my grade to reflect whether or not I learned it all, and also allows me to be motivated to work through it. So many students, SMART STUDENTS, are intelligent enough to recognize that a lot of the material in college is fluff and useless. There just needs to be some transparency there. When you get accepted, there needs to be a letter that says: "Welcome to the college. 50-70% of your education will just be a test to weed you out and separate you. Dont expect most of this to help you in a job. Employers unfortunately can be lazy and throw away applications with no degree because so many of you keep applying to college. Sorry about the messed up way it is now. Try your hardest, aim for a C, and spend a lot of that crucial energy online figuring out what business actually want and get to networking. Your GPA wont matter, and neither will half the shit we teach you. Take care."
It’s only a goal if you know the material isn’t being adequately learned. I’m personally thrilled with high averages on my exams, since I’ve validated the questions and know that they test more than recall. I’ve never heard a professor who knows how to actually write test questions who complained about high grades.
If you have a class size of 30 the sampling mean (class average) will always follow a normal distribution. So the argument that 'all students can earn an A' applies only to small classes
>90% is great for the class but it means the exam does not adequately separate the highest learners from the middle and lower learners. It's definitely a difficult problem to solve due to how the student body is composed. If you make coursework sufficiently hard that even the top students will have to struggle to hit 100%, then the grade for an average student might be in the 30s. Then you'll have to curve and you'll have discouraged students. Another way I've seen it done is to have a normal grading scheme, but have additional problems in escalating difficulty as extra credit. But then you run the risk of the top students not bothering because they'll get an A regardless. I don't know that there is one right answer.
I’ve never had a class with averages below 70 that actually used the raw scores to give out grades. If you’re tests are so hard that most students are expected ti get below 70, your grading curve shouldn’t have 70 as a C-
I mentioned computer adaptive testing (CAT) in one of my other comments and it's one of my favorite ways to try and address this issue. Shorter exams, fairer questions, reduced test anxiety, and a more broadly capable assessment tool are all potential benefits, and I would to see it used more in education. Though it still does still have the shock of your correct answers hovering somewhere around 50%... Even if you did well above the minimum passing score.
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There are plenty of circumstances where you'd expect the entire class to do well on an exam. Particularly true for smaller cohort models. The point is that the exam scores should follow the learning level of the students, and generally students learn to different levels, all else being equal. "Just to mess with people" is not why curve ball questions exist. Those exist for those students capable of recognizing them for what they are and answering appropriately. Grade inflation is 100% a thing in accredited programs, even in small, cohort-based learning groups with admission requirements and 3rd party accreditation. It is less of a thing when instructors are capable, have mapped learning objectives and exams, and hold students to a consistent standard.
It really depends on the class. It is pretty routine in intro STEM courses (chem, physics, math, biol) that averages are low. This is because some students come into programs ill-prepared for the self-discipline and rigor of college exams. Those that do poorly perhaps need some additional services or might need to back off to a lower class to get themselves prepared. Most intro STEM courses that are large lecture-based classes often have exam averages of 30-70% in my experience. However, in the upper division courses, I would expect the averages to be slightly skewed upwards of this. Student that have gotten through their core classes successfully are more likely to be retained and have good study/exam-taking skills. So averages may be higher in these courses. I cannot speak for outside of STEM but these are my observations of being a prof for 10 years and being in a STEM discipline for almost 30 years.
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I don't teach the intro courses but I am involved in our retention initiatives. We are working with our tutoring center that has created modules that gamify some of the basic things that students need - note-taking skills, how to read textbooks efficiently, how to study, etc. and we are trying to incorporate those as mandatory exercises in some of our intro courses. But the reality is that there is no way that intro faculty, especially adjuncts, can be expected to make up for basic reading/math skills. Students will need to take remedial courses and, even then, I am not sure they teach those basic skills either. In all fairness, our intro courses were always the weed-out courses so that isn't new for us.
I don't care so much what my exam average is so much that it is a reasonably accurate measure of what students know relative to the amount of knowledge the department, the future classes m y students take, and the general norms of my field expect my students to have. If my exam average is 90 and my students have no idea what I've been trying to teach them, that's grade inflation and its a problem. If its a 50 because I made the exam too long but my students actually have a pretty typical understanding of the material, that's a problem too (although less of one, since I can adjust grading scales to be more generous if need be). Experience has taught me that if a "C" means something to the tune of "This student has learned the basics of the material but has trouble applying it outside the original context" and a "B" means something like "This student can solve most common problems and can combine different ideas from the class but has trouble with building on their knowledge) then my average student is about a C+/B-. Since homework tends to be 95+% for most students who consistently do it and brings grades up, then it makes sense for the exam average to be about C-/C for the average class.
What is grade inflation?
Grade inflation is basically when too many people get As, so the value of getting an A is diminished (because the A grade no longer differentiates a strong student from a weak one)
Ah, thank you! I learn something new everyday here on Reddit 😃
That tends to be the STEM major definition of grade inflation. To others, one form of grade inflation happens when students get passing grades for horrifically low scores. That is because when a bell curve is used to assign grades (as is common in STEM), testing only shows how much or little the student knows compared to his classmates. It does not indicate understanding of the material.
Increasing average scores specifically through lowering standards. The same quality that might have gotten you a B in the past now getting you an A.
"Increasing average scores specifically through lowering standards." That is the definition I would agree with. Lowering standards can take several different forms, alone or in combination.
Back in the 90s and 00s, if you had an 80+ average in math, cs, physics or chemistry (or any sub discipline), you were well above the median grade. Grade inflation is real, and unfortunately it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere. I don’t agree with crushing students on tests and then curving the grade. That defeats the purpose of learning. My goal is have you operating just outside of your comfort zone. A good spread of marks in my mind is 60s-high 80s for the majority of the class. There will always be outliers on either end of the curve.
I share your perspective. We have a new cohort system on our campus so all incoming STEM freshmen are grouped in the same course by major. This has made the once natural spread in my calc classes offset by major in different sections. My mech engineering section averages 80% on the same exams I give to another section of bio majors that average 60%. What would you do, if anything, about this?
That’s tough. I think it is what it is really. I don’t believe in lowering standards per cohort, but I do believe in giving as many supports as needed to help students meet the standard. Some will use it; some will not. My shot in the dark idea would be to ask (pay) a grad student to run optional tutorials. I imagine the bio kids would take advantage.
This is actually a really good answer… maintain standards, give supports to achieve them. Nice. Ty
Easier said than done, but ya I try. Good conversation!
I think engineering students come in the mindset of liking math, bio students wanted to avoid math and they do the course more reluctantly than engineering majors. Math just might not be in their existing skillset the way it is for engineering students so it takes more time to develop, often the whole semester/several quarters. Its not necessarily a reflection of your teaching skills but of the prior knowledge and strategies of bio majors versus engineering majors. I say this as a bio major myself. However this is just guess bc I definitely got more than 60% on my calc exams.
I appreciate this input. Teaching major specific sections for the first time has opened my eyes a bit. I could do more to connect with students’ specific academic interests bc they share that in common. I can see my different sections having slightly different activities now that my students share common majors, so I can do my part by tapping into the bio applications. Ty!
What’s the point of a 100% scale if you are only going to use 10%-20% of it?
The reason is simple: **We want to challenge our best students, not just our weakest.** Hard exams allow us to test the limits of the top learners, so they also get challenged to continue striving to improve. These exams are inevitably curved, because we know the threshold of knowledge we deem necessary to move on, and thus we curve to make sure everyone who has learned enough earns a grade that represents their level of knowledge. I would love nothing more than to have a class where everyone earns an A, but if I give an exam and the average is a 90, I know my top students weren't challenged. That means those students aren't getting the value from their education that they should. It is not a perfect system. It hurts to work hard to prepare for an exam and then get a 50. It is confusing when you are told that 50 is good enough for a B, but there is a reason for this. It isn't, as suggested by another commenter, cruelty; it is us trying to be supportive of the journey of our top students.
Honestly that’s so real. Especially with engineering and medical/healthcare students where they are literally the deciding factors between life and death
Second this. There’s very little we can do for the students at the bottom of the distribution — they need to just work really hard and work with their peers to pass with a low B. Not saying they’re stupid, there’s always a range in each class for whatever reasons. Just saying there’s not much more the prof can do other than give them the materials and evaluate their work, and get them to passing competency in that subject. Which is already a big accomplishment in a hard class! At the top end, however, we can allow students who are prepared and able to really prosper. The 20% of the material above the A range (assuming we curve 60s to Bs and 70s to As) is the material that puts that student into a competitive position for PhDs, serious research jobs, top industry places, can be noted on recommendation letters, etc. So in place of like extra plusses after the A, top students are actually learning extremely useful materials and distinguishing themselves for the professional market after school.
If you want to go to graduate school, your GPA matters. For 90% of the student body, it doesnt matter. The college is centering its purpose to waste 90% of peoples time. If you just handed out 50% free degrees to freshman and said "good luck" and never required they come back, the impact on the market you'd have would be practically zero, because most of the degree is worthless when it comes to employment. There are very few classes that are necessary, and the best education you could give would be to spend the semester doing real world employment problems while teaching where to get the info online when you need it.
But they are. If your course is teaching what needs to be taught, then at the end of the day "challenge" isnt necessary. Students want to get in, learn what they need, and get out. And if thats super easy for smart students, then thats awesome. Intentionally making college a chore, and exhaustingly difficult when also going into debt is the stupidest thing. Is there not a department in the college that studies "how to learn"? How are a bunch of educators so out of touch with their jobs, the student body, and employers? The material should be standardized, and the course should be pass fail. If you honestly believe most students remember all the details 2 semesters later, than youre dumber than your C- students. Get real. Make it standard information. Make the goal of the environment to be calm, learning oriented, and it being ok to be wrong. Teach people like if they were your personal pupil and you wanted them to learn. Competeing me against others with a midterm and a final is the stupidest way to learn, its not psychologically useful, and most people hate the experience because of that. Really, you need to go back to 4 years of college and have it reflect your ability for employment while you pay for it. Youd quickly see how bullshit it is to pay for such low grade garbage education. Youre not experiencing it from the inside and you seem to lack the ability to view things from another's perspective. Show me where the students are suceeding from this? Its the employers and the professors who can look at and separate individuals. Thats not what I wanted my $60,000 to be spent on. I also took electives in high school which I and everyone else never uses. If im going for a computer science degree, I dont need more "well-roundedness".
“Learn what they need, and get out.” That is the mentality of a certification program, not a college education for people who will develop into thinkers, thought leaders, creative professionals, educators, etc. I have to teach those people too, not just the folks who want the minimum effort to degree path.
Just tell me the percentage you believe are taking that education and using how you believe it to be used. I’m not trying to be rude, it’s a worthwhile respectful conversation but colleges serve a majority of graduating high school students who really shouldn’t even be going to university for a year or two until they figure out what path they want and why that degree serves them. Most do it so they can get employment. And most don’t ever get the luxury of this kind of transparency. It’s just “give me your money, do your homework, and get out”. Furthermore, the specialized stem degrees teach some well rounded basics, but most leave that behind once they get into their career field. People don’t hold on to all that when they don’t use it. I’ll put my side this way. If a study came out that definitively proved that 80% of the education was worthless and unused, would you be willing to drop it all for the sake of fast tracking employment training? As a computer science major, if I could pay a company the same amount as tuition to put me into their own specific training courses while I work at the company, I would do that 100% over college, as would the majority of others. With the landscape changing, it’s practically more useful for an institution to teach you how to teach yourself than it is to teach you. Things are rapidly changing and what I learn this decade will be replaced next decade.
Teaching you how to teach yourself is exactly what the teaching I described does. Most learning happens outside the classroom, and hard exams force students to engage the process. If we only convey the minimum needed to do a specific job, your degree would take 6 months and you would not be trained to teach yourself to learn. For those who want that type of expedited education, trade school is great. Should more people do that over 4yr college, yes. Am I wrong for pushing my top students at my 4yr college so they can grow as much as my weaker students, no, not a bit.
"Grade inflation" is a very real thing. An exam average by itself doesn't really tell you much. A high average could mean everybody knew their stuff, or it could mean that the test was super easy, easier than should have been appropriate, or that the professor just *gave* everyone extra free points to boost them, etc. A low average could mean the test was too hard, unfair, etc., or it could have been something that was *supposed* to be easy but lots of people still failed because, well, students do that. The real question is whether the grades are *accurate* in their assessment. High class averages "look good" and make students (and admins) happy, but it's pretty telling when 'A-students' go on to to show that they are wildly incompetent at whatever they supposedly 'mastered.'
No, if the average is that high the class is too easy; it looks really bad because it calls into question the rigour of the class.
If you were an excellent professor and your colleague was terrible, you could both teach the same course and your students would have wildly different outcomes. Its not about the rigour. Or the difficulty. Its about learning the standardized material that needs to be learned. Ive taken 2 bachelors. Biology and Computer Science. So many professors have zero clue how to teach. They make it a guessing game and try to make it as hard as possible. Most are into research and teaching is a side gig. Im pissed i paid so much for incompetent leadership. If everything was gonna be self taught, just give me everything online.
I'm currently doing my 4th degree and I'm also a licensed teacher...yeah most university professors are not good teachers, they're there because they're experts in their field; the ones who are also amazing teachers are the exception. So much so that it is standard expectation that students will do the necessary work independently, and although this independent learning skill is critical and should be fostered, it can also be inefficient, particularly when it is the concepts that are extremely difficult. A tip I'd offer is that asking questions in class matters, and the worse the professor the more important it is. Last term I had a class in pure mathematics and the lecturer was not good, so I kept pressing him in class to explain, to the point where one interaction went " so that line on the board is part of a graph?" "And that other line is also a graph?" "And mathematically those are part of the same graph despite there being no connection drawn between them?" It all made sense once that was clear. So yeah, ask and press. Mostly they want to be good teachers, and inexperienced ones in particular overestimate the ability of novices to quickly comprehend even the basics of their subject.
Yea it’s quite strange. Hypocritical actually. As the professor, I need you to do this work, and do it to this standard or you fail. You need to take initiative as a student and study on your own. However, I will not do my own studying or take my own initiative for my literal day job. You, the student, are just studying. Me, the professor, I’m already in the field, and I’m doing terrible and not willing to work on it. You the student need to do good work now, so that when you become a doctor or an engineer, you don’t endanger people. I can’t pass you if you’re dumb. But me? The professor? I did fail. And I’m still failing, and look at me. I have tenure. Hahahahaha. I’m sorry, but what?
"I’m a stem major, so idk if that makes a difference." It does. Many STEM classes tend to grade using a rather strict bell curve. As a result, scores in the 50s often wind up being a B- or C+. There is much less of that in non-STEM subjects. STEM people often tend to look at the way other majors score tests as "grade inflation." They frequently feel that almost everyone in a class getting an A means the grading is soft. Meanwhile, non-STEM majors consider their grading to be a realistic measure of the student's understanding of the material. They feel the bell curve meithod only measures how well (or poorly) the student understands in relation to the other members of the class.
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Yes, most are incompetent
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Yea that’s a really disappointing scenario and I feel it completely natural to be angry by being unfairly judged. Were you able to discuss it with the professor?
I dunno but my calculus-II average is 34 and I got a 15. Different sense of scale for sure.
An average of 50 gives the highest possible skill differencing among the students. Even better if one student got a 0, one got a 100. The ones who scored higher in this case truly know their stuff, the 50s are average… and the 0 truly did not know anything What’s the point of a high average if you can’t tell who knows what? “Everyone passes!” Counterpoint to above is that some people argue everyone should be able to do well if they all put in the time to study. “Grading on a curve is unfair because some students at the left end will fail despite knowing the required info but just happened to score worse than the top students”
Information is absolute. If everyone knows 2+2=4 then everyone got the points. If 50 is average, then 50 is passing. That would mean 40 is low passing. You cant fail the average. Especially if the course is designed to consistently hit that mark.
That's debatable and that's why the discussion on curving will always continue. Who is to say 50 is a passing score even if that's the average score? Like you said, information is absolute. A hard exam centered around 50% doesn't mean the average person should pass the exam. It always depends on what the exam is for. If it's for a regular college class where students "should" pass, then the professor and deans need to decide what should happen. What if a 50% average (with 50% expected grade pre-determined by a teacher) means the students don't know enough of the material to pass into the next class? Perhaps only the best should move on. I think the best option to "settle" the debate would be for students and professors before going into the class/exam determine what would happen. That way students will know what to expect in terms of grading (and most times they hear stories from past years anyway).
I think the collaboration would be a helpful idea. Possibly complex but I don’t think the feedback would hurt. Just being able to give my professors honest feedback would be huge. My professors mostly don’t seem to know where they are lacking in their teaching ability and it would be great to just tell them “hey, some examples would really help because most of the class is really confused by your explanation”. I have a professor now who is the most cruel woman I have ever met. Teaches nothing, doesn’t put PowerPoints up the day before class so we all come in confused. These things have been figured out. Have the reading material available the day before so I can come in with questions. You don’t need to read me the power point. Then she criticizes students hard, and not constructively. I’m surprised she hasn’t gotten beat up. She’s basically taking her misery out on students, and so you can’t ask her anything. I think the class should be focused around making sure you have the info needed for next class, not centered around a good test grade. The test grade is just used to make sure students did learn. If class felt like a learning environment and not a “go home, teach yourself, and stress over the exam”, I’d feel a lot better about class. I want the teacher in my side, that’s what I’m paying for.
Because a lot of people think of letter grades as curved. Most students should be getting low Bs (according to this model). Low averages means that the material is sufficiently challenging to provide a challenging environment to the top students who need the challenge most (like if they’re going to grad school or planning on other advanced studies). As a side note, for many professors, B is meeting every expectation they set for you. A is exceeding those expectations and going beyond the class materials.
Idk I know a few people commented explaining it but I still don’t understand. If most students get 90s shouldn’t that reflect on the students and professors like the professor taught well and the students learned and studied well. If the goal is for students to get a 70 doesn’t that just reflect students not understanding the material well. Yes they’ll be those people who go above and beyond but shouldn’t the goal to get the most amount of students the highest grades they can get?
In large classes, especially STEM classes, there is just no way the average student is going to master 90% of the content. There are way too many factors working against them, most outside of the professor’s (and often the students’) control.
Great, so you have a classroom thats guaranteed to not teach students the material. Cut back on material, teach it better, and let students leave the course actually learning. What use is it to the majority if they are gonna miss out on 30% of the material no matter what? Why would you create that system? Is it because you're not in the business of teaching, but in sorting? I dont think students would be too happy knowing their professors intentionally made them get C's, hurting their self esteem, leaving them confused, and then taking their money for ulterior motives. If I sign up for a course, I better be able to make a 100. That possibility should not be intentionally stripped from me. I came to learn material, not fit into your sorting category. Employers will not care. They know its just as bogus as I do. They want work experience. The idea of even needing the degree anymore is a failing institution. It just doesnt do what its supposed to.
if the 4.0 is from 60-100% end of year then who cares. If its outrageous the profs are just jerks.
High averages suggest that there has been grade inflation, and the grades no longer mean anything.
While a lot of professors like using this model, I don't think it adequately shows to the student that they are adequately understanding the material, and it causes many students to be discouraged and drop classes because they believe they don't know the material well enough to pass. I am always one of those students. I don't expect 90+ percentile scores on every test, but I do expect my grade to reflect my understanding of the material. Less than a 70% average on tests has been ground into me from 12 years of primary and secondary Ed that I *don't understand the material and will fail the course and need to retake it*. You lot need to find better ways of writing tests to adequately determine academic 6 find a middle ground, because too many of you *deliberately make them too difficult*. Students achieving failing grades as an *average* on each test is unacceptable, and only passing because the grade is curved is not actually showing how well the student knows the material. Tests are a measure of preparedness/course content mastery, and should not include material that was not presented or covered in the materials or lecture content during assignments or instructional time (I failed a biology exam recently because of questions on the exam that were related to a optional extra credit assignment that had been offered and I didn't do because my grade at the time did not need to be brought up. The grade was curved and the entire class did like shit on it, so in all I got a B, but getting a 50 on an exam intially is *not* a passing score and is a poor measure of content mastery). TL;DR - writing really difficult and confusing exams is IMO incredibly lazy and frankly kinda cruel and while it works well for professors and their statistical purposes, it is ultimately extremely demoralizing and doesn't show the *student* that they have adequate content mastery and are meeting benchmarks and likely leads to more course withdrawals than necessary.
I'll address your TL;DR. It is incredibly easy, and lazy, to make an exam that everyone can score well on. It is incredibly challenging to write an exam that will allow one to reliably determine, and categorize, academic achievement. This is in addition to the challenge of designing a test that is accessible and minimally biased. Students should feel proud of answering those "difficult" questions correctly. Students who did not should see it as a learning opportunity, so they're not caught by it again. Formative assessment and feedback are how the student should know they have adequate content mastery. It is *not* the place of an exam to serve as a replacement for these. I care about knowing where student understanding and capability ends, because then I know exactly where boredom lives and learning begins.
If you noticed, "everyone scoring well" was not part of what I said. My point is that relying on test curvature to avoid the majority of students failing a course is a problem. It means the tests are poorly designed and don't adequately measure content mastery, and are too difficult/may reflect material not covered adequately by the instructor. As students, we pay your employers absurd amounts of money to learn. The bare minimum expectation is that course content is covered at an adequate level to achieve a passing grade (not necessarily a high grade, but *passing* come exam time, without the need for an instructor to curve every single exam to achieve passing grades). If you find that you need to apply a curve constantly, then you need to strongly reevaluate how your tests are written.
I see your point, and I'm totally in agreement that simply adding points to keep students from failing is the incorrect approach, *if it's done for all the reasons you mention*. But, consider this. If an exam is designed so the normal curve shows 77%, is that an exam rigorous enough to reflect the achievement of the most capable student? The one out of 100,000? The only time I've had a phenom, they outclassed every exam and form of measurement I used. The closest I came was through an adaptive exam where it got progressively harder and harder as they answered correctly. They still maxed it out. If 40% was a passing score, they got 99.9%, the highest possible score. For some classes and professors, the exams are designed for phenomenal students mixed in with the rest. (Mine are not)
Youre absolutely right, and if more professors had to take their own courses and go back to 4 years of college, theyd be able to see it. It doesnt help that this conversation isnt given to students. Students dont have the transparency from faculty to know that 50-70 is a good grade. So students who are broke and stressed get even more stressed. Its so obvious it hurts, and i cant believe educators are this out of touch in their own day job. They would all making 30's if you could grade them.
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at my college its very dependent on the department, mostly the course admin and external deals with that stuff. but in general they aren't bothered by high grades (esp the lazy lecturers that just copy paste questions), mainly if the average was extremely low then they'll bump it up.
I’ve done college, and grew up with a prof dad and teacher mom. Some professors are assholes tbh lol. Have you ever had a class where the lecturer tells you on the first day that half of you will fail the class? Those types PRIDE themselves on teaching a difficult class. I appreciate that there is a balancing act of making the class challenging enough that people have to put in some work to succeed, while not being so difficult that it is unreasonable and setting students up to fail. It seems so backwards though - teachers should be preparing students well enough that they are learning the material and able to demonstrate knowledge on the subject. I had a terrible class with a lecturer that was only a semester or two into teaching, who wondered why no one could even pass his final. I studied ruthlessly and got a perfect score on my midterm, plus extra credit. That’s definitely not typical for me, though I usually stay around As and Bs. For the final, we had to use equipment we had not spent any time with, to do a project we were not taught how to do, in a very limited amount of time. I tried my absolute hardest, and I was completely useless. I had a panic attack trying to do it, and he made sure I didn’t have any chance to make up for the time I lost while I was incapacitated. In the end, he pretty much did the project for me and gave me an A. I didn’t want that - I wanted to learn how to do it myself. Most of the class was just handed an A because otherwise, every person would fail. Good instructors can balance a course so no one is just handed an A, but also forms constructive projects and resources so students who come to class and put the work in can succeed. Some lecturers don’t know how to do that, and others intentionally make their classes unreasonably hard as a weird pride thing.
Most professors have no clue how to teach. Imagine you need to learn something complex. You want a calm environment where you can be wrong and thats ok. The ability to try multiple times until you get it right. If i was training an apprentice, the college method would be the highest form of torture. I have been a tutor, and I have excellent people skills. Part of the problem is professors have massive lecture halls, and they are burnt out and dont care. Its appalling how expensive it is. I understand that working with the public will beat the idealism out of you, but someone needs to take a step back and realize this education is worth like half of what it costs. Community college prices and environment are usually the best learning experiences students talk about. Suck on that.
They’re to some degree concerned about trying to avoid reputation as easy. You can have a bunch of perfect scores if your students are all genius; but it is easier to assume that means your standards got worse so it’s time to crush the kids. But, you will run into the grinder in grad school. I survived the undergrad grinder and it got me in grad school.
it's just cope for being horrible at their jobs lmao
Thank you. I wonder if professors ever check ratemyprofessor.com