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Re: Concerned About Grades



It would seem that if a teacher wishes to have a certain number of
students at each grade level it could be achieved by making the tests
harder and harder, if you have a regular range of abilities in the
class. What if you have a class of kids that are fairly evenly adept
at the course being taught. Why should they be graded to a bell curve
instead of a straight percent for their grade? This may fall under the

Lisa (and others):

There are actually TWO separate and OFTEN contradictory reasons to
evaluate students, and it is helpful to recognize and distinguish
between each in grading situations:

CRITERION-BASED GRADING means you are grading based upon an absolute known
performance standard. Driver's tests, plumber's tests, Law tests, Medical
Doctor qualification etc all fall into this category. Mastery learning is
appropriate and should be pursued. We want EVERYONE to exceed a certain
competency standard to maximize the safety of all. HS leaving exams would
fall under this. We'd like all students to get As.

NORMATIVE or NORM-BASED GRADING means you want to rank the students in
order of ability, usually because you are going to spend additional and
limited resources on only a few of the student population. For instance,
you might hold an exam to award scholarships, or for early promotion from
the Naval Academy, or to admit only an elite to a program of study. For this
kind of grading we do not want everyone to get As, and this is actually in
the best interest of the student, so as to identify appropriate students for
futher resources when resources are limited and the student might not be
appropriate for additional study. It may be a disservice to a student to
identify them for futher study for which they are not yet ready, particularly
if you deny other students resources. Note I don't include resources for
underrepresented populations in this arguement -- that is a whole other issue.

Most instructors in fact do both of these, sometimes on the same test by
weighting basic skills such that a pass indicates competency while normative
grades are awarded beyond competency (E.g. - this question separated my
A's from B's on this exam). To add to the confusion, some instructors
don't actively discriminate between these kinds of grading.

My guess is before adopting a university major normative grading would be
preferable to summative; after adopting a major criterion-based grading
is more appropriate. On applying to grad school (or med school etc),
normative could be more appropriate than criterion-based, but once
accepted we would expect graduates to have criterion-based grades. Further
study would require yet another normative measure if resources were limited.

Personally I'd like to see teachers undertake criterion-based grading,
with as many repeats as desired to qualify them well.

Too much already from

Dan M

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Northern AZ Univ
danmac@nau.edu http://purcell.phy.nau.edu PHYS-L list owner