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Re: Concerned About Grades



I would like to respond to two messages posted under this topic.

1) First, in response to Doug Craigen's statement that implies that
students generally do better in their major courses, compared to those
outside their majors, because their majors are where their interests lie:

I would point out that many students believe in trying to achieve high
grades in ALL classes, and apply themselves accordingly, making up with
extra time and effort for any lack of interest and/or natural talent in a
given subject. Some majors, like pre-med, essentially require this in
order to have the competitive record needed to go on for professional or
graduate study.

Another observation I have is that a lot of students who do extremely well
in other subjects/majors find physics much more difficult than the other
subjects, whereas students who are excellent physics students through the
upper-division level tend to find it pretty easy to do well in other
subjects. I have known lots of non-physics majors who found their general
education requirement physics course to be the hardest course they ever
took, while none of my fellow physics and engineering majors found their
general ed courses in the humanities, history, etc. very difficult at all.
This points toward the conclusion that the combination of natural talent
in physics and the diligence required to do the work is rather rare. After
all, it is well known that careers in science and engineering pay quite
well. Yet, there is a shortage of Americans who get degrees in these
areas. Surley more people would enter these lucrative fields if they had
the talent and diligence required to do so. I include diligence in my
argument because I have observed that physics/engineering major courses
typically involve a greater quantity of required work than do courses in
majors in the humanities, history, etc.

2) In response to Lisa Gardner's statement that grading on a straight
percentage is FAIRER than using a curve, because everybody can get an "A":

Careful examinination reveals that this kind of statement is really
nothing more than an appeal to emotion--Most people would FEEL that it is
more fair. I find this claim to be disingenuous in that, in practice,
teachers who use what is proported to be a fixed percentage scale tweak
some other factor in response to student ability and performance in order
to get an acceptable distribution of grades. There are many things that
can be tweaked: the difficulty of the tests, prerequisites/admission
standards for the class, course objectives/content, not to mention the
blatent practice of changing the number of "possible" points used in the
percent calculation to be less than the actual number of points on the
test.

Good teachers do--and should--be responsive to what students are capable
of. If we really consistently gave tests on which we really believed that
everyone (or even the vast majority) could get, say, 90% or better, we
would be depriving the better students in the class of being exposed to a
sufficiently challenging CURRICULUM. (Note the reference to a challenging
curriculum, as opposed to challenging test). Such an approach also means
we would be negleting our duty to provide grades that allow a RANKING of
students' abilities (mitigated by diligence). Ranking is a major part of
what grading is about, even though some may philosophically disagree with
the the concept.

Seen in the light of these arguments, there is little validity to the
claim that using a curve as one of the ways in which grades are tweaked in
response to student ability and performance is somehow "less fair" than
the other methods. Such claims are clearly an attempt to appeal to
emotion, much like the appeals to emotion used by politicians who claim
that an opposing point of view is "mean spirited" or "uncaring," in order
to side step a non-emotioal, LOGICAL discussion of an issue.

Respectfully,

Mike Ugawa
St. Ignatius College Prep, San Francisco
mugawa@quark.sfsu.edu

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* MICHAEL B. UGAWA *
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* PHYSICS * CHEMISTRY * COMPUTER SCIENCE *
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* mugawa@quark.sfsu.edu *
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