Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Concerned about grades



Dick Heckathorn wrote:

So I looked at how I graded to see if I was too hard a grader. For four or five years of class data, I took the 6 6-weeks grades and made a "GPA" for each student. I then determined an average "GPA" for each class. Next, I went to each student folder and obtained their GPA for all classes taken prior to taking the physics class. I likewise found an average GPA for the class. The result.....

My physics class "GPA" was from 0.6 to 1.1 lower. Relative to the rest of the teachers in the school, I was too hard a grader. Why, I thought. I think it was because I was taught to use the bell curve. Yet, I did not have a school wide student body. I played around, adjusting my physics grades. Why, I don't remember, I changed my bell curve to the center being a 'B' rather than a 'C'. My class GPA then fell in line with the student's GPA.

So by discovering that only brighter students take high school physics -
students whose average is in fact a 'B' already, you have justification
for shooting for a B rather than a C average. If as you suggest this
hasn't changed since the 60's, perhaps:
1) grade inflation isn't occuring at your school
or
2) over the long haul you have succeeded in turning around the image of
physics classes locally so that now you are drawing from a more uniform
cross-section of students. The two effects have occured in step to more
or less cancel out.

**

There is another side of this that I've seen teaching first year
classes. Since these classes tend to be populated by students majoring
in another subject I think the argument is far from clear cut. Suppose
that on average biology students taking first year physics obtain 1.0
lower than in "all their other classes" (mostly biology). Is this
really any different than we expect from physics majors taking first
year biology? When I took electives I did not assume that there was
something wrong with the class if I obtained a lower grade than "my
average". I was majoring in physics because that's where my interests
lay and that was where I did my best work. I think that much of the
criticism we take on this is due to our small number of majors relative
to many other programs.

I assume that somewhere/sometime studies have been done saying what
students tend to average in their own subjects and in other subjects.
Does anybody have data from such studies?

\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\

Doug Craigen
http://www.dctech.com/physics/about_dc.html