Poll: Grading System Flawed?

legend of duty

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Apr 30, 2011
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After a test my teacher writes the class average on the board. If it is anything less than a "B" then he says you all did not do that well. This bothers me as a "C" is supposed to mean average however all of the teachers I've had have also felt this way. Not to mention many colleges also feel this way. So Escapists do you think the grading system needs to be redefined or is it fine just the way it is?
 

Esotera

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May 5, 2011
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Any quantitative grading system has inherent flaws...is the number of questions or how well you wrote an essay question really a good way to assess understanding of a subject? And don't get me started on learning to specifications -_-
 

him over there

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Strange since up here in Canada, at least where I live a B is considered average. What I hate about it is how it is constantly counting down on you. You start at 100% and once you get anything less than that, even 99% then 100% is forever unobtainable. There needs to be a way to eliminate outliers and chart actual progress than simply adding up everything you've ever done and deciding on an arbitrary contextless number.
 

Logiclul

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Sep 18, 2011
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Who said that C = average? Because it is in the middle of "A B C D F"? I suppose that on average then people live to be L years, despite the fact that only 20 people do, and that it just happens to be at the middle of an arbitrary scale?

The interpretation is flawed. Subjective grading is flawed, which is the reality of many courses, but there is no superior option, as if we never do types of work which are graded subjectively, then we'll miss out on a lot of learning.
 

dyre

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If your B is the same as my B (that is, 80-89%), then it's not flawed at all. If I were a teacher, I'd want my students to be pretty damn proficient at a subject before I let them leave and say they were educated on it. I could get a C-range grade without attending class or studying.

HOWEVER, that is because the difficulty of my classes ensures that people who got As were working pretty hard, while people who got Cs were slacking. If you professor grades in a way that a hard working, reasonable intelligent student can expect to get around 75% of the questions right on an exam, that'd be a different story.
 

FalloutJack

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Nov 20, 2008
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The flaw is not in the analysis, but the analyzer. Human error is the greatest weakness logic has ever had.
 

park92

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Regnes said:
Think about it this way, in elementary and high school you could get a passing grade with 50%, that's all you really needed, you were just proving you acquired the bare minimum knowledge to progress to the next level. In college/university though, there really isn't a next level, you're not learning to advance to the next class, you're being trained for an actual career at this point.

The most popular example to use is a doctor, do you want a doctor who only got 70% in his classes? Do you want to trust your life with a man who only knows 70% of what he's supposed to? This is the same for anything, if you perform 10 tasks and 3 of them wind up being totally botched, you aren't doing very good.

Whether you're in high school or college, it's a fair assessment, you're just being held up against standards you should be striving to satisfy in the long run.
well classes in uni are curved so that only the best few can proceed even though sometimes they only got 50% as their overall average.
 

Lilani

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May 27, 2009
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Logiclul said:
Who said that C = average? Because it is in the middle of "A B C D F"? I suppose that on average then people live to be L years, despite the fact that only 20 people do, and that it just happens to be at the middle of an arbitrary scale?

The interpretation is flawed. Subjective grading is flawed, which is the reality of many courses, but there is no superior option, as if we never do types of work which are graded subjectively, then we'll miss out on a lot of learning.
C being "average" is not referring to a mean or a median. It's referring to the quality of the work. If you accomplish the minimum requirements and do only what is asked of you. As and Bs are when the work goes beyond what was asked of the student. For example, I'm supposed to write an essay on the effects of Industrialization on the southern parts of the US. If I simply describe exactly what it says in the textbook verbatim, then that would be a C paper. But, if I not only describe what it says in the textbook, but also provide further analysis relating it back to the problems of Reconstruction and show how it ties eventually in with the Great Depression, then that would be closer to an A or a B. I proved I have more than a basic or minimal understanding of the topic.
 

SL33TBL1ND

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Don't you people have rubrics which show what accounts for each grade? All of these education questions that keep popping up seems to suggest that teachers outside of Aus just give you a contextless number or letter.
 

LetalisK

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Regnes said:
Think about it this way, in elementary and high school you could get a passing grade with 50%, that's all you really needed
Buh? Is that a Canadian thing? Because at every school I've been too, outright failing starts at 59%(which is an F). In high school you could still get a 60%(D-) and pass, but in my college any non-major class below a C-(70%) is considering failing and any class within your major below a C(75%) is considered failing.
 

AquaAscension

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I don't get it. Grades are arbitrary... sort of. They're supposed to measure proficiency, but they don't always. Well, okay, they measure a person's ability to answer certain questions, and they can give a ballpark idea of how well someone puts a sentence together (according to another person's estimate), so in that way, they measure proficiency. But they certainly don't measure intelligence.

I think the problem is that a lot of people assume that bad grades = stupid or lazy whereas good grades = smart or motivated. Perhaps motivated yes, but not necessarily smart. Whatever way you cut it, grades don't (and won't ever) tell the whole story about someone's abilities.

Truth is that forcing everyone to get A's is reinforcing the myth that everyone is above average. Some people are just average. Perhaps advanced in his or her own way, but average otherwise.
 

SycoMantis91

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the point of most schooling is to prompt the students to become above average and help in said goal. Therefore this is very reasonable as well as a tool by which to measure yourself. Most colleges present a much higher degree of difficulty than the average high school. Therefore they must hold you to a higher standard. Also, who wants an average programmer or an average doctor? No one. Average rarely gets you anywhere. And establishing that early is only helpful.
 

Smiley Face

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As I've gone through various levels of education, I've noticed the grading system change as to what's considered average. It's been 80%, the 70s range, and now that I'm in university, it's the 60s range, with 67% as the designated 'average'.

Even within that broad context, what constitutes 'average' work will change from class to class, teacher to teacher, and if you're in a large institution, TA to TA, as they're the ones who mark my work. And depending on your area of study, expectations will change, there's the variable use of the bell curve between different programs.

In short, it's a wonder that there's any meaning to be found at all in grades, anywhere.
 

Phisi

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Usually that is the average across the state or country, so if you are in a high achieving school then it would be kinda bad. Or it may be out of marks and the tests are easy :p
 

Giftfromme

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Grading system is not flawed and is designed the way it is for a specific reason. The bell curve (guasian curve or whatever) is a fabrication super-imposed upon grades to fit students upon the cruve. It works very well this way.

Either:
Students are moulded to this curve
or
Students with previous poor marks and ones with good grades are sprinkled in classes so that the curve holds still. This raises other questions for which I have no answers for.

But grading systems are not designed to actually test your ability. That they do poorly. What grades do however is seperate students into social classes. The ones with predominantly poor grades can only have access to certain jobs etc. Of course there are exceptions to this rule and people can rise above their station, but those people are an exception. Most people will become their grades as this is how schools are designed. Right from the start you designate the "haves" and "have nots".

This may sound cold and indifferent, but its how it must work in a growing society. The "lower tier" jobs must be worked by someone and the way our phyche operates demands that the only way for definitions of "rich" "poor" etc to work is to have a few people at the top and a lot of people at the bottom. This is how it has been for most of history and how it is by and large today.
 

lacktheknack

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legend of duty said:
After a test my teacher writes the class average on the board. If it is anything less than a "B" then he says you all did not do that well. This bothers me as a "C" is supposed to mean average however all of the teachers I've had have also felt this way.
You're acting like the two concepts are mutually exclusive.

When it comes to a career, "average" simply isn't good enough, and it's a good thing that schools are reflecting it.
 

Omnific One

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Grading (and grade inflation) is what screws up our education system.

I have friends who are in far worse colleges than me (because they didn't do that well) and have higher GPAs. Just because I'm at a good university means that I have a lower GPA, while they mainly go to parties and still pull a 4.0. Tell me how that's fair.
 

3 legged goat

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Feb 28, 2010
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Most people are stupid, so the average is C. Unless the teacher is terribly hard you shouldn't get less than a B.