Comments on: Grade Inflation http://muninn.net/blog/2004/04/grade-inflation.html But I fear more for Muninn... Thu, 10 May 2012 09:07:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: Ellis Godard http://muninn.net/blog/2004/04/grade-inflation.html/comment-page-1#comment-1801 Ellis Godard Tue, 18 Jan 2005 03:58:19 +0000 http://muninn.net/blog/2004/04/grade-inflation.html#comment-1801 Rojstaczer was right, but who's going to do something about it? Other than Princeton and a few other examples, there's little top-down pressure to assign centers or ranges for grades. The typical "solutions" I hear concern not what grades should be assigned, but what should be graded, which entirely misses the point. Rojstaczer was right, but who’s going to do something about it? Other than Princeton and a few other examples, there’s little top-down pressure to assign centers or ranges for grades. The typical “solutions” I hear concern not what grades should be assigned, but what should be graded, which entirely misses the point.

]]> By: ggggg http://muninn.net/blog/2004/04/grade-inflation.html/comment-page-1#comment-102 ggggg Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://muninn.net/blog/2004/04/grade-inflation.html#comment-102 Oh Muninn. If only you knew what goes on when students get their essays marked. It just shows that like everything else, grades are subjective. Oh Muninn. If only you knew what goes on when students get their essays marked. It just shows that like everything else, grades are subjective.

]]> By: Derek http://muninn.net/blog/2004/04/grade-inflation.html/comment-page-1#comment-103 Derek Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://muninn.net/blog/2004/04/grade-inflation.html#comment-103 This is one area that I feel the hard sciences are much less subjective than other areas. Especially in the lower-level classes, almost everything is a matter of right or wrong. The only real gray area is for more advanced problems, where you get partial credit for going about solving for the answer in the correct way, but didn't get the exact answer. Even in more advanced classes, where there may be many ways to solve a particular problem, if you have reasonable assumptions and solve the problem correctly according to those assumptions, you will score highly. And I've never had a professor where you couldn't appeal grading if you thought it was graded incorrectly or misunderstood by the grader. In engineering classes I've never heard anything about grade inflation. We'll see what happens when I go to grad school this fall, but I doubt that anything will change. But for liberal arts courses, I think I can understand somewhat what you're saying. The only liberal arts classes I've taken were low-level general ed. classes though. Since I really didn't care too much about the class, I just regurgitated what the professor wanted, and got A's without too much trouble. This is one area that I feel the hard sciences are much less subjective than other areas. Especially in the lower-level classes, almost everything is a matter of right or wrong. The only real gray area is for more advanced problems, where you get partial credit for going about solving for the answer in the correct way, but didn’t get the exact answer.

Even in more advanced classes, where there may be many ways to solve a particular problem, if you have reasonable assumptions and solve the problem correctly according to those assumptions, you will score highly. And I’ve never had a professor where you couldn’t appeal grading if you thought it was graded incorrectly or misunderstood by the grader.

In engineering classes I’ve never heard anything about grade inflation. We’ll see what happens when I go to grad school this fall, but I doubt that anything will change.

But for liberal arts courses, I think I can understand somewhat what you’re saying. The only liberal arts classes I’ve taken were low-level general ed. classes though. Since I really didn’t care too much about the class, I just regurgitated what the professor wanted, and got A’s without too much trouble.

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