Grade Inflation - what do you think?

Casey_81

Im a Phd Student with the CS Dept & have been involved in lecturing/tutoring/demonstrating for the past number of years....

Having seen both sides of the story, I do think that there is an element of grade inflation going on.

Im not sure if its a case of "in my day it was not so easy to get a 1st" or if there is truth in this. What do you think?

hypersquirrel

I would have to agree with you, I've seen it happening as well.

banquo

Liber8or

Was just wondering if you could elaborate on this a bit more OP. Are you referring to one/some of the following situations?

1 - Students 'favoured' by departments who receive more favourable results?
2 - If many students in a module do average or bad, some are selected and bumped up to 2.1 or 1.1 standard to benefit the reputation of the college?
3 - There is a quota tutors must reach when deciding grades, e.g X amount of students must receive a 1.1 or 2.1, and so on?

I find this news quite startling as I sat my L.C during the mentioned timeframe and I am currently in Maynooth doing my degree. Obviously I understand you are not allowed to discuss specific cases, but I am interested to know the protocols.

theredletter

Tutors are never given 'quotas' to fill. Their honest opinion to the grade is usually respected. If there is a problem, an extern will review. I don't think this really happens in other departments, tbh.

mickstupp

I don't understand any of this, so from a completely ignorant point of view... if there's an element of grade inflation, surely all the external examiners are in on it, or at least refusing to downgrade? Maybe the so-called inflation is due to more people going to college simply because there's more people in the country? Or maybe people are just studying harder and therefore more people getting higher grades?

Personally, I think the minister is a bellend and should instead be worried about how his drastic cuts will show fruit in a few years with a drastic downturn in grades across the board. But my opinion is not founded on any actual knowledge or facts etc. blah blah. I just think there's holes all over everything the minister ever says. And part of me thinks he's trying to cast a bad light on things to justify cost-cutting in some way. Again... no grounds for my opininonion.

Last year in one of my Philosophy modules there were I think 3 firsts out of 160-ish people and roughly 35% failed. I sometimes wish there was inflation. Or last semester in ancient classics, there were (I think) 7 firsts in total spread over Greek & Roman Civ, Greek and Latin. I think that's six modules, 7 firsts in total. Not so inflated I'd say. Random examples. Doesn't count for much.

Effluo

I've passed a few exams which I should have failed.

I'm pretty sure cause I'm the only one in my class they "help" me a long a bit, My specific course has a mega high failure/non completion rate so I can understand why they'd do it.

Even some lecturers were saying to me how they didn't think I'd be passed on a specific grade, either way I'm not complaining lol

Liber8or

Don't get me wrong, I am just curious as to how these inflations happened. Also, Maynooth may not be a culprit. Perhaps the problem can be seen in other Universities, so it may not threaten the credibility of our degrees.

We will have to wait and see what the initial report reveals later on in the week.

Casey_81

Liber8or wrote: »

Was just wondering if you could elaborate on this a bit more OP. Are you referring to one/some of the following situations?

1 - Students 'favoured' by departments who receive more favourable results?

I have no experience of favouritism.. generally students who try hard do well, and lecturers/tutors get to know these students because they are interested in the subject.

Liber8or wrote: »

2 - If many students in a module do average or bad, some are selected and bumped up to 2.1 or 1.1 standard to benefit the reputation of the college?

If students are borderline (i.e. within 1 or 2 % of the higher grade) their scripts are examined and rechecked. Resulting in them either getting a few extra % or they will loose a few %

Students are not randomly selected and given higher grades based on this.

Liber8or wrote: »

3 - There is a quota tutors must reach when deciding grades, e.g X amount of students must receive a 1.1 or 2.1, and so on?

There is an element of truth here in this. In that the curve of the results is examined to ensure that there is a good spread across the marks.

Personally, I feel that there is an element of truth in the quest by google relating to grade inflation. I blame modularisation where students from all backgrounds are thrown together into courses where they have no knowledge or aptitude. This forces the lecturer to teach to the lowest common denominator - resulting in a softer version of the course being taught - which feeds into grade inflation.

Casey_81

Liber8or wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, I am just curious as to how these inflations happened. Also, Maynooth may not be a culprit. Perhaps the problem can be seen in other Universities, so it may not threaten the credibility of our degrees.

We will have to wait and see what the initial report reveals later on in the week.

I dont think maynooth is the only culprit, but i have no knowledge of any other university so cant exactly comment on them. I am a firm believer in maintaining standards. if there is a significant change in the curriculum of a degree they should rename it.

This practice of allowing people to repeat for a better grade is a joke!

DTOWN

standard of some lecturers is horrendous! Some excellent but some just looking for a cushy number. Universities have become money hungry. Its a production line! Max the revenue mentality !

theredletter

Casey_81 wrote: »

I have no experience of favouritism.. generally students who try hard do well, and lecturers/tutors get to know these students because they are interested in the subject.



If students are borderline (i.e. within 1 or 2 % of the higher grade) their scripts are examined and rechecked. Resulting in them either getting a few extra % or they will loose a few %

Students are not randomly selected and given higher grades based on this.



There is an element of truth here in this. In that the curve of the results is examined to ensure that there is a good spread across the marks.

Personally, I feel that there is an element of truth in the quest by google relating to grade inflation. I blame modularisation where students from all backgrounds are thrown together into courses where they have no knowledge or aptitude. This forces the lecturer to teach to the lowest common denominator - resulting in a softer version of the course being taught - which feeds into grade inflation.

I think that if a student makes themselves known as struggling and shows enthusiasm deserves an inflation based on merit. This is usually found in the continuous assessment modules.

Modularisation is a different issue altogether. I know for sure that most departments are strict when it comes to inflation.

Mostly, I think what you're saying is a bit of a myth. I think your problem is with continuous assessment and participation marks being awarded to students, rather than anything else.

If you've a problem with how your department is dealing with this issue you should consult with them or take it to the Centre for Teaching and Learning?

Duddy

AFAIK one of Google's reasons for this was that a high grade student did not have the problem solving ability needed to do half their job - this is hardly surprising, when you look at the leaving cert:

Languages: Learn off vocab, grammar, spelling, set questions/essays.
Sciences: Learn off laws, rules, answers.
Maths: Learn the solution to the problem from the book/teacher.

The core principle of the LC is learn, revise, learn some more, revise some more, cram cram cram exam. There's no room for problem solving or, god forbid, independent thinking.

If they want to criticise the grades students have gotten, criticise the manner in which they have been gotten.

Ostrom

theredletter wrote: »

I think that if a student makes themselves known as struggling and shows enthusiasm deserves an inflation based on merit. This is usually found in the continuous assessment modules.

Coming from the same position as the OP (and from experience at other universities over the years) this is impossible in practice. As much as we would like to award participation marks, it just doesn't work with classes of up to 400 (assuming within-tutorial grades are possible, the issue of standardisation across tutors renders it unworkable).

theredletter wrote: »

Modularisation is a different issue altogether. I know for sure that most departments are strict when it comes to inflation.

Another user commented on the ironic self-auditing nature of O' Keeffe's comments - which worryingly address the root of the problem. Modularisation is but part of a trend of resource-maximisation which has been pushed from his shop directly onto us, which has entailed (from my experience) a dumbing-down of course content, and a relaxation of compensation criteria. I find the more substantial differences appear toward the bottom of the curve - a more worthwhile question should be the amount of fails we allow progress who clearly have not demonstrated competence.

I can say that there is never any element of standardisation (although distributions are compared across staff by externs, marks are not adjusted to normalise). If every student performs to first-class level (according to marking standards set before modules are delivered), then everyone is awarded a first. As policy, all firsts and fails (if graded by a tutor) must be run past the course lecturer, so there are plenty of QC and standards checks along the way.

The extern's input is a gray area (I have not have direct experience of it at NUIM), but in general, the revised thresholds for compensation make it next to impossible for us to fail a student. When you consider the proportional figures of firsts in the context of a supposedly 'homogenous' body of 'non-first grades', the figures appear deceptively high, when in fact the real adjustments in standards are at the opposite end of the distribution.

theredletter wrote: »

Mostly, I think what you're saying is a bit of a myth. I think your problem is with continuous assessment and participation marks being awarded to students, rather than anything else.

If you've a problem with how your department is dealing with this issue you should consult with them or take it to the Centre for Teaching and Learning?

With respect, it isn't. CA grades are worth very little, attendence is a very small proportion of a CA grade for most modules, and participation is often impossible to reliably measure. Assuming a student is awarded a full participation mark for one day of eight tutorials, based on our departmental guidelines, the student stands to gain less than .01% - when in turn opens up the debate concerning CA incentives (which in my opinion should be much greater).

I came up under the old system of 'end of year' three-hour exams, and I do think this has a lot to do with it. It kept you on your toes in a way semesterisation doesn't, in that specific courses were tailored to a specific cohort of students (I was in engineering at the time), and material built cumulatively on that of a previous term. Semesterisation involves shifting cohorts of students, needless revision, and, as Casey_81 mentioned, cross-degree participation. (Hence the dumbing down).

I find Batt's (also HEA's, in general) insistence on 'resource rationalisation' (cutting face time, processing in and out), his recent harping on mythical 4-hour teaching timetables, and now this most recent self-audit of a problem of his administration's creation a little sickening.

CnaG

Casey_81 wrote: »

This practice of allowing people to repeat for a better grade is a joke!

A joke? No it's not. I think it's quite fair really. I intend to repeat one of my exams to see if I can get a better grade in August. I had a really bad day on the day of my exam which dragged my mark down from an average of 80, to 62. **** happens, and I appreciate the option is there for me to try it again.

As for modularisation - I love it. It let me take a geography module last year, and I did really well in it despite never having taken any geography in college before. It wasn't dumbed down, it was just new material for everyone in the room. Maybe some people are just smart...

As for passing people who probably ought to have failed, it's not limited to Maynooth.

But if you really have an issue with 'grade inflation' perhaps you should take it up with your department, not on boards. You're only going to irk people...

Aurongroove

I just wish they'd grade you properly. for certain subjects a 65 is impossible unless you dedicate two whole days a week to studying it, in others 90+ is achievable without lifting a book. (and I've done both)

hypersquirrel

CnaG wrote: »

A joke? No it's not. I think it's quite fair really. I intend to repeat one of my exams to see if I can get a better grade in August. I had a really bad day on the day of my exam which dragged my mark down from an average of 80, to 62. **** happens, and I appreciate the option is there for me to try it again.

As for modularisation - I love it. It let me take a geography module last year, and I did really well in it despite never having taken any geography in college before. It wasn't dumbed down, it was just new material for everyone in the room. Maybe some people are just smart...

As for passing people who probably ought to have failed, it's not limited to Maynooth.

But if you really have an issue with 'grade inflation' perhaps you should take it up with your department, not on boards. You're only going to irk people...

Exams are fair because you are all given the same amount of time to study and have the same chance as everyone else. I remember that for my final year exams I was suffering from insomnia and hadn't slept more than 2 hours a night in five days. I got 68 in a lot of them. I could have repeated and probably got a first but I don't see that as fair.

The option to repeat for a better grade encourages people to adopt an "oh well" attitude to exams. I have seen students fail who didn't even care because they knew they could repeat. I have also seen students who don't bother studying for some subjects at all because they think I'll study these two and get a better grade then if I was studying the three and then I'll repeat the other one and get a better grade in that.

All it does is remove the threat of failing. That seems like the worst imaginable attempt at dumbing down if failing isn't even a problem anymore.

Ostrom

Aurongroove wrote: »

I just wish they'd grade you properly. for certain subjects a 65 is impossible unless you dedicate two whole days a week to studying it, in others 90+ is achievable without lifting a book. (and I've done both)

Brendan Halpin (UL) is working on a dataset of exam grades from ten years of examination data (and was good enough to give us a peep at the raw data a few weeks back), which should see print over the coming year.

O'Keeffe's preamble included little about departmental effects, which were found to be the most significant factor determining upper-grade disproportions across UL departments - particularly faculties of subjective grading (ie. in engineering, where it is, in theory, possible to achieve full marks in everything, vs. sociology, which tends to stick to a qualitative upper-interval of 70-80 for its maximum grades).

Cpt Beefheart

People volunteer to repeat exams??? Thats a new one on me. Its bad enough having to do them once. I understand the bad day reason, but it just seems like a particular savage way to while away the Summer.

allandanyways

Haven't read too much about this, but speaking in general terms, I do think grade inflation is actively in practice in the college, I think it's particularly hard to deny actually.

In my English class, the average grade when we get exam results back is between 45 and 60. There's an awful lot of 55s. I know some of the people who get these 55s and they do nothing. And I actually mean NOT A THING. They go on moodle the night before and throw together a half arsed answer and somehow come out with 55. I've also known of people working their arses off for essays or exams, and only coming out with 60.

I just don't see a standard marking scheme across the board to be honest. The people doing little or no work for an exam and getting 55, they're not naturally intelligent, they don't bother with spelling or presentation. I've read their essays and the people themselves will admit they did feck all, I mean you're reading an essay that's all words but nothing else. Yet the people getting 60 for the same essay are miles ahead of the 55-ers and their essays show that. I don't understand how there can be a 5% difference between doing no work and doing a decent amount of work.

It just annoys me when there's no work being put into something and people are still getting in the 50s for it. Are the correctors dense or something? Anybody here who corrects essays, can you not tell when someone hasn't put any effort into it?

That's why I think grade inflation (to what I understand it) is in place. I just can't see examiners and correctors being so absolutely blind to the fact that no work has been put into something, and that it's barely passable.

Liber8or

Surely a lot of the problem must come from External Examiners, since they are supposed to check such papers and verify their grades?

If they are examining them and seeing similar grades in their own University then where is the inflation? I assume some departments have organised to have their papers checked in the North or U.K?

Ostrom

allandanyways wrote: »

In my English class, the average grade when we get exam results back is between 45 and 60. There's an awful lot of 55s. I know some of the people who get these 55s and they do nothing. And I actually mean NOT A THING. They go on moodle the night before and throw together a half arsed answer and somehow come out with 55. I've also known of people working their arses off for essays or exams, and only coming out with 60.

90% of the problem in my opinion, you can now get to third year without ever seeing the inside of a library

allandanyways wrote: »

It just annoys me when there's no work being put into something and people are still getting in the 50s for it. Are the correctors dense or something? Anybody here who corrects essays, can you not tell when someone hasn't put any effort into it?

As above, the lack of effort has less to do with the awarding of grades than with broader changes such as those mentioned in earlier posts (modular teaching, moodle etc).

Dont be taken by the headline, this has nothing to do with us awarding the grade - we dont set the criteria of pass grades, define standardisation of modules, implement moodle posting as policy (departments are actively encouraged) - the problems are set in motion long before we get our hands on the scripts.

A very clever move on his part - shifting the focus to a simple issue of grading, when the cause is systemic (and at this point, entrenched - hell, some of it is policy, such as compensation criteria).

allandanyways wrote: »

That's why I think grade inflation (to what I understand it) is in place. I just can't see examiners and correctors being so absolutely blind to the fact that no work has been put into something, and that it's barely passable.

Also factoring the rise in numbers attending, managerialism and commercialisation, and general social change of the past fifteen years - Ireland, much less the university, is not that of 1995.

funky penguin

700% increase in 1sts since 1994?!?!

Is this true?!

nothing

funky penguin wrote: »

700% increase in 1sts since 1994?!?!

Is this true?!

Incredibly misleading. In 1994, 1.5% of degrees awarded got a 1st. In 2004, this was 11.1%. So this is a 640% increase (I think) in 1sts, if all you're comparing is the two figures. In fact the increase in students awarded this grade is less than 10% higher. In 1994, we had 670 degrees awarded, compared to 1175 in 2004.

There's also the fact that minimum CAO requirements have significantly risen for entry to degree courses in those 10 years.

{I've gotten all the figures from http://www.stopgradeinflation.ie/Grade_Inflation_in_the_University_Sector.pdf }

Anyway, this seems to be a retrospective study, not to mention the fact that it's observational, and the statistics are sketchy at best, and used purely in a misleading manner, I'd be very very skeptical about grade inflation overall. The percentages are thrown around willy-nilly (<- my favourite scientific term!), with no real explanation, no real statistical methods used to verify their "results". Simple frequencies, and playing around with them, making claims that, without context, to the lay person will sound bad/good, depending on the opinion of the researcher, do not give the whole picture.

If anyone can point me in the direction of a more reliable paper on the matter, or even more information, I'd appreciate it

funky penguin

See, this is what I was afraid was happening - not taking into account the ratio with regards to the MASSIVE increase in degrees Maynooth now deals with. As well as the INITIAL percentage of 1sts.

Cheers for the post. I wonder has the report done some major damage to us? It looks SO bad that the next college down the list...UCC iirc? has a 179% (I think) increase in comparison to our 700%. Theres a reason I avoided the statistics question on the Leaving...... Why can't there be more trig based situations in everyday life.....

Casey_81

Heres the official response from the press office, might help clarify the stats

Statement re Grade Inflation

The awarding of first class honours degrees at NUI Maynooth today is fully in line with the Irish University sector.

The majority of students graduating from NUI Maynooth in 1994 were undertaking the more broadly based BA General and BSc General, which did not have honours classifications, and therefore first class honours degrees could not be awarded. The analysis produced by TCD did not take general degrees into account and is incorrect.

Today all undergraduate students admitted are enrolled in honours degree programmes. In 2009, the cut off entry points for Arts at NUI Maynooth was the highest of all NUI Universities and 13.6% of students graduating were awarded a first class honours degree. This accounts for the significant rise in first class honours degrees over the period under review. The comparison percentage is high because the college was starting from a low base in 1994.

The quality and standard of degrees awarded by NUI Maynooth are externally and independently validated by academics from leading international universities.

NUI Maynooth’s international standing is reflected in the fact that it is the global education partner for Intel, and home to IVI (The Innovation Value Institute) a joint research institute set up by Intel and NUI Maynooth, which was awarded to NUI Maynooth in 2006 over MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Lord TSC

Hehe, 2 years ago, I did a screenwriting course with the English department, as part of our major essay assessment. The lecturer was quite open with the fact he was going to use an American grading system, whereby 90% = A, 80% = B and so on. And thus most people in the class walked out with between 80 and 90% (I got 97% <_<).

The English department freaked and gave everyone (IIRC; it's been a little while) a 30% grade deduction "in an attempt to even the scores with the rest of the people who did other essays" for other lecturers. A lot of people complained, since there were 80% who got cut to 50% and may have deserved a higher grade than that, if not as high as an 80. I still walked out with the 67% though so I was happy enough.

Kinski

allandanyways wrote: »

In my English class, the average grade when we get exam results back is between 45 and 60. There's an awful lot of 55s. I know some of the people who get these 55s and they do nothing. And I actually mean NOT A THING. They go on moodle the night before and throw together a half arsed answer and somehow come out with 55. I've also known of people working their arses off for essays or exams, and only coming out with 60.

I took English and I actually thought that their marking system seemed mostly quite fair. By my final year, I was able to predict pretty accurately what grade I would get for any essay I handed in - I knew the difference between, say, an essay that would get 68% and one that would get 70% (found it much trickier to do so with exams, though - since you just have to go in, write your answer, and hand it up; no chance to look over it later and assess it properly.)

However, there clearly were people who just coasted through the three years. It's not like I ever read anyone else's essays, so I'll take your word for it that those in around the 55 mark weren't up to much. Maybe they need to mark harder at that end of the scale, but equally I've always thought subjects like English were a little easy to bluff your way through anyway - if all you wanted to do was coast along, you could do it and stay within the 2:2 range, but you'd never attain a really high mark doing that. A 5% difference might not seem like much, but it is the difference between a 2:2 and a 2:1 (so those on 60 are at the bottom end of a class that goes all the up to 69, rather than 'just' 5% ahead of the bluffers - that's 'the glass is half-full' way of looking at it.)

Effluo

Would it be fair to say that when people decide on a uni they take into account how many 1st's and such are got in the uni?

With the competition so high among the uni's today I'd say this could well be a reason for it all

princess_calico

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Hehe, 2 years ago, I did a screenwriting course with the English department, as part of our major essay assessment. The lecturer was quite open with the fact he was going to use an American grading system, whereby 90% = A, 80% = B and so on. And thus most people in the class walked out with between 80 and 90% (I got 97% <_<).

The English department freaked and gave everyone (IIRC; it's been a little while) a 30% grade deduction "in an attempt to even the scores with the rest of the people who did other essays" for other lecturers. A lot of people complained, since there were 80% who got cut to 50% and may have deserved a higher grade than that, if not as high as an 80. I still walked out with the 67% though so I was happy enough.

That's ridiculous! So they were basically saying that it's impossible to get over 70%? If they were going to change the marks, that's fine, but have each of the exams independently reviewed by a different examiner and marked as they see fit!

CnaG

It didn't factor into my choice Effluo. But then I was (unexpectedly) a trinity reject so not a whole lot about Maynooth factored into my choice. Still glad I'm here though

Effluo

CnaG wrote: »

It didn't factor into my choice

The amount of 1st's attained may well have been a factor if there were a lot less awarded in a certain college than in other college.

It would imply what the quality of education was, Now that I think about it....

Anyone I know in UCD or Trinner's(roice) seem to be given a shed load more work than people in Maynooth. Has anyone else noticed this?

What are the stats in terms of % of Firsts awarded in each college?

I did a bit of a google search but could find nothing only stuff relating to Arts students

Lord TSC

princess_calico wrote: »

That's ridiculous! So they were basically saying that it's impossible to get over 70%? If they were going to change the marks, that's fine, but have each of the exams independently reviewed by a different examiner and marked as they see fit!

Yeah, that was my thought as well.
Thinking more, it was actually 20%, since I actually still walked out with the A (77%).

I could see their point, since the screenplays were marked at a different standard than every other essay people did for the other seminars. But I agree we should have had another examiner come in and regrade them. I know for a fact there were people who got cut from 70+ down into the 50s who did deserve a higher mark than they walked out with.