Please read The Stroking Community, Part 1 before continuing.
The Grading Leniency Assumption
The evidence for the bias assumption questions the validity of SETs, but it does not, by itself, explain grade inflation. The grading leniency assumption adds that college teachers try to obtain favorable evaluations by assigning higher grades and by reducing course workloads. Stroebe cites three surveys that show that a majority of faculty believe that higher grades and lower workloads result in higher SETs. One survey published in 1980 found that 38% of faculty respondents admitted lowering the difficulty level of their courses as a result of SETs. (I’m not aware of any more recent survey which asked this question, which is unfortunate.)
It should be noted, of course, that faculty may not be aware of having changed their behavior, or they may think they have done it for other reasons. One common reason given for watering down courses is that contemporary students are unprepared for college-level work. (One former colleague, for example, said, “You have to meet students at a place where they feel comfortable.” Unfortunately, that “place” gets closer to the downtown bars with each passing year.)
Indirect evidence for the grading leniency assumption comes from student behavior. Greenwald and Gillmore note that students would ordinarily be expected to report working harder in courses in which they expect to get a higher grade. However, in a study of over 500 classes, students reported doing less work in those courses in which they expected to get a higher grade, a finding which is readily explained by the grading leniency assumption.
Finally, there are studies of the effects of grades on future course enrollment. Some universities publish average grades by course and instructor at the university’s website, and it is possible to determine through computer signatures whether students have accessed this information. In two studies, consulting past grading data predicted future choices of courses and sections, with the sections with higher grades being preferred by about 2 to 1. In one of these studies, this preference for easier courses was greater among low ability students than high ability students.
It should be noted that lowering the students’ workload not only improves faculty evaluations, it also lowers the faculty’s own workload. There are fewer of those time-consuming term papers and essay exams to grade. Instead, teachers can give the multiple-choice exams that are considerately provided free of charge by the textbook publisher.
The faculty members with the most to lose in the current enviroment are those who attempt to maintain high academic standards and are punished for their integrity with low student evaluations. If they don’t have tenure, they could be fired. And even if they do have tenure, they are likely to be under considerable pressure from administrators to improve their evaluations.
Grade Inflation
Here’s another chart to remind you of how bad grade inflation has gotten. It shows the change over time in the frequency of letter grades.
Grade inflation is an unintended consequence of universities’ reliance on student evaluations. Can it be considered a good thing? Kohn proposes that grades serve three functions: sorting, motivation and feedback. If grades gradually lose their meaning, they become less useful as sorting criteria for employers and graduate schools and less useful as feedback to students. The students most harmed are the hard-working, high ability students who would have gotten A’s in the absence of grade inflation. They are no longer able to distinguish themselves from their more mediocre colleagues. Leading average students to believe they are doing better than they actually are could lead to unpleasant shocks after they graduate.
The motivational function of grading assumes that the rewards and punishments provided by grades induce students to work harder and learn more. But the picture that emerges from the course selection studies is one of students attempting to obtain higher grades without working for them. Stroebe suggests that grade inflation is most likely to demotivate high ability students, who might decide that studying is not worth the effort if they wind up with the same grades as their less deserving classmates.
It’s hard to see how grade inflation can be reversed. The Wellesley solution of mandating lower grades holds some promise, but only if it is adopted by almost all similar universities at about the same time, since if some universities attempt to control grade inflation while others do not, their students will be at a competitive disadvantage when applying for jobs or to graduate school. Princeton initiated a similar program, but abandoned it after peer colleges failed to follow suit. There was some concern that controlling grade inflation might cause studients not to come to Princeton.
A shorter-term solution is suggested by Greenwald and Gillmore. They propose that SETs be statistically corrected for the average grade in the class. Although their method is complicated, the gist of it is that if the distribution of grades in a class is lenient, SETs are reduced. If the distribution is strict, the instructor receives a bonus. Although this makes good sense to me, it’s hard to imagine a university faculty agreeing to it.
The implications of this research are depressing. Students and professors are rewarding one another for working less hard. They are caught in a social trap in which short-term positive reinforcement serves to maintain behavior that has long-term negative consequences for themselves, the university and the society. Meanwhile, colleges and universities, already under financial stress, are decaying from the inside out because they are failing to meet their most basic obligation—that of helping and requiring students to learn.
You may also be interested in reading:
The Stroking Community, Part 1