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: grades, assessments, etc.



1) In general, you can't possibly guess what traits
bosses are looking for.

Sure, all bosses are looking for employees that please them; even if what
pleases them is an eccentric that questions their every statement. I'd
venture that a grade is some indicator of the students ability to please the
"boss". My statement that there are many things that go into a grade other
than mastery of a body of material wasn't meant to imply that I am
conciously guessing what future bosses are looking for in addition to
mastery of a body of material, quite the contrary.

2) Many of the behaviors that produce good GPAs (such
as signing up for the easiest-possible classes, not to
mention cheating) are anti-correlated with what I'm usually
looking for.

Agreed, and I'd say that these anti-correlations are worse, in general,
(certainly with exceptions) in a high grade inflation environment.

3) To be blunt: Teachers give out grades. Teachers
like to feel important. Ergo teachers drift toward thinking
that grades are important. Well, sorry, they're just not
that important. To the extent that you can use grades to
motivate the students, fine, but don't let students think
that grades _per se_ are the objective.

I agree and disagree. I agree if you mean that one shouldn't read too much
into the meaning of the grade. I disagree if you mean that they are next to
meaningless. And again in a high grade inflation environment I agree even
more with your statements.

I"m not sure that the fact that they aren't all that objective is a
criticism. I haven't seen any evaluation instrument that is particularly
objective. Its also curious that despite being rather subjective, different
teachers tend to give students the same grades for similar course
performance. At least that has been my experience when I have directly
made comparisons, e.g. I teach the second semester of a sequence of course
and talk to an instructor who had the student the first semester. To be
honest I have been amazed and surprised at how such "subjective" processes
seem to arrive at consistant results. I see this when I serve on committees
evaluating applications for scholarships as well.


IMHO most electives should be graded in such a way that
they don't count toward the "official" GPA. They could
be graded pass/fail (or pass/no-credit) or just kept
"off the record" like pre-season ballgames that have
a score but don't contribute to the standings.

Two comments here

1) I agree with some of the sentiment here, I took a complex variables
course as an undergraduate that I wouldn't have otherwise taken, simply
because we had the option to take a certain number of credit hours
pass/fail. The stated purpose in the catalog of this policy was exactly
what John suggests above, to encourage the taking of elective courses in
areas that the student wouldn't otherwise feel comfortable.

2) OTOH, in a non-grade inflation environment, an environment where a C
grade would not viewed as essentially failing. The fear of grade reduction
for elective courses wouldn't be as bad, as getting a C or B wouldn't be
reducing your GPA to a significant degree.


I still believe that GPAs are of verrry little value for
bosses, and I'm not backpedalling on that... But I
recognize that grades have some value for motivating
some subset of the students.

Sure they are of little value, except in the absence of other information of
value. A situation in which that a graduate admission committee frequently
finds itself. Or a situation that a "boss" looking at a newly minted
bachelor's degreed individual and only gets a group of applicants that have
been pre-sifted by human resources. Human resources (the first boss in the
chain of hiring here), mostly only had a GPA for information.

I fully agree that if you are the boss and you get to have decent interviews
of candidates that have been in the work force for ten years, that you have
reasonably reliable letters of reference, blah blah blah then GPA should be
one of the last things you would look at.

You don't want them to
hesitate to take electives for fear of ruining their GPA.


Absolutely.

My main point is that every one (or at least most) of the legitimate
criticisms you offer to grades and GPA are exacerbated in high
grade-inflation environments.

And as a sub-note, seem to bring on all the extra inanities of paperwork
foisted on us by North Central accreditation, standardized testing folks,
etc.

I'm curious, would you advocate elimination of grades and GPA's?

Joel R.