Grade inflation

flash1080

A friend of mine in university will probably get a 2:1 for his 4th year engineering dissertation, and he only did a weeks work on it tops.

El Weirdo

flash1080 wrote: »

A friend of mine in university will probably get a 2:1 for his 4th year engineering dissertation, and he only did a weeks work on it tops.

And?

OutlawPete

Yeah, well my cousin works in Tesco and she's gonna get a lotto win and didn't even buy a ticket.

KeithM89_old

Ahhh University. Working hard 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, 2 weeks a year.

Oranage2

College teaches you that life skill on how to get by in life by doing the least amount of work as possible

whydoibother?

My theory is that universities like to have all their graduates coming out with in or around the same results. On most courses, most people will fall between 55% and 75%. Any marking criteria I have seen for any of the universities I have attended have been so vague that you could really award any mark you liked and justify it by reference to the marking criteria. This creates the twofold problem of students not really being completely clear what is required for a top-notch answer, and secondly not knowing how much the subjective view of the lecturer will come into play. We have all had "easy markers" and "hard markers".

In my opinion the solution is to have a really tight, comprehensive marking scheme published - not just a few vague aspirations such as "through knowledge", "well-structured", "evidence of reading" - these are far too vague. I'm thinking more along the lines of leaving cert. marking schemes. I would aspire to have a situation where an answer is indisputably X% and any two people marking would have to agree on that. People will say that this takes away the opportunity for creativity and originality of thought. I disagree. Most of the school essay subjects have a facility to award marks for any point the candidate makes as long as it is supported and properly argued. I also don't really believe a huge amount of originality occurs at undergrad. level anyway, especially in exams when it's a struggle to get the basic facts down, and I think it would be more productive to accept this and focus on whether students know the current knowledge. The problem with my suggestion is that it would deprive universities of flexibility to manipulate results e.g. if there are too many firsts or too many fails. There will be people getting 100% and people getting 10%. They won't like that. They want 55%-75%.

InTheTrees

Once you reach a certain age none of those details matters anymore.

I just make stuff up on my resume now. I learned it from a book editor in NY who had a fictional husband and two kids, plus a degree from the sorbonne on her resume.

bonerm

flash1080 wrote: »

A friend of mine in university will probably get a 2:1 for his 4th year engineering dissertation, and he only did a weeks work on it tops.

Did he design a new type of pump?

flash1080

whydoibother? wrote: »

My theory is that universities like to have all their graduates coming out with in or around the same results. On most courses, most people will fall between 55% and 75%. Any marking criteria I have seen for any of the universities I have attended have been so vague that you could really award any mark you liked and justify it by reference to the marking criteria. This creates the twofold problem of students not really being completely clear what is required for a top-notch answer, and secondly not knowing how much the subjective view of the lecturer will come into play. We have all had "easy markers" and "hard markers".

In my opinion the solution is to have a really tight, comprehensive marking scheme published - not just a few vague aspirations such as "through knowledge", "well-structured", "evidence of reading" - these are far too vague. I'm thinking more along the lines of leaving cert. marking schemes. I would aspire to have a situation where an answer is indisputably X% and any two people marking would have to agree on that. People will say that this takes away the opportunity for creativity and originality of thought. I disagree. Most of the school essay subjects have a facility to award marks for any point the candidate makes as long as it is supported and properly argued. I also don't really believe a huge amount of originality occurs at undergrad. level anyway, especially in exams when it's a struggle to get the basic facts down, and I think it would be more productive to accept this and focus on whether students know the current knowledge. The problem with my suggestion is that it would deprive universities of flexibility to manipulate results e.g. if there are too many firsts or too many fails. There will be people getting 100% and people getting 10%. They won't like that. They want 55%-75%.

Yeah it'll never change. Sure there's a lot of lecturers who never read the work submitted. I've seen essays marked purely on the word count, one guy submitted the wrong ms word file by accident which contained an article copied and pasted direct from wikipedia, no change in font, and he got something like 65% lol

bonerm wrote: »

Did he design a new type of pump?

No. Tbh a primary school child would've managed to do exactly what he's done in a week too.

kowloon

Once you figure out that the difference between putting in a massive effort and just getting the work done is a single grade it's hard to care all that much.

Crimbouser

Try to flesh out your points more op and you might just get one too!

flash1080

Crimbouser wrote: »

Try to flesh out your points more op and you might just get one too!

Haha, I've actually lost out on marks for not waffling on. I'll never forget how some lecturers advised us to lie and bullshít when presenting our work.

steddyeddy

Op I agree that a few eijits do minimum work in uni and still pass and that isnt an acceptable at all but when these people get into scientific fields the work they put in shows. In a filed like biochemistry you can study in the exams and barely know the basics of chemistry and biology but once you get into a lab and do something like gene transfer or cisgenesis your absolutly f*cked if you stuck to the bare minimum in college.

flash1080

steddyeddy wrote: »

Op I agree that a few eijits do minimum work in uni and still pass and that isnt an acceptable at all but when these people get into scientific fields the work they put in shows. In a filed like biochemistry you can study in the exams and barely know the basics of chemistry and biology but once you get into a lab and do something like gene transfer or cisgenesis your absolutly f*cked if you stuck to the bare minimum in college.

When I did work placement in college I hated the place where I was working. I worked 1 hour out of 40 in the week and people thought I was the busiest person there! The engineering manager gave me a high first class honours mark for my time there (work placement was part of the course). What you said doesn't seem to hold for engineers :pac:

Naikon

flash1080 wrote: »

one guy submitted the wrong ms word file by accident which contained an article copied and pasted direct from wikipedia, no change in font, and he got something like 65% lol

How was he not done for that? I hear colleges take this stuff seriously, to the point of kicking people out. What if they went back on his essay? Revocation? Mind you, the above would not surprise me at all. Some rules confuse the **** out of people.though.

steddyeddy

flash1080 wrote: »

When I did work placement in college I hated the place where I was working. I worked 1 hour out of 40 in the week and people thought I was the busiest person there! The engineering manager gave me a high first class honours mark for my time there (work placement was part of the course). What you said doesn't seem to hold for engineers :pac:

No it doesnt at all, I admit my field is restricted to biological fields were demands in areas such as research are high. I find it strange that people who invest time in a subject their presumably interested in would want to work so few hours!

flash1080

Naikon wrote: »

How was he not done for that? Would you not be kicked out for that? I hear colleges take this stuff seriously, but the above would not surprise me at all.

Some lecturers really don't give a ****, they don't bother looking at the students work, they just make up marks to suit the curve.

steddyeddy

Naikon wrote: »

How was he not done for that? I hear colleges take this stuff seriously, to the point of kicking people out. What if they went back on his essay? Revocation? Mind you, the above would not surprise me at all. Some rules confuse the **** out of people.though.

True plagiarism is a huge issue with most decent universities.

Naikon

flash1080 wrote: »

Some lecturers really don't give a ****, they don't bother looking at the students work, they just make up marks to suit the curve.

True. I've seen it happen a few times myself. If I was a lecturer, I would never chance it though. What if the college stored all the work and found Lecturer X has passed 200 word for word wikipedia jobs? At that point, the student isn't the only one to blame.

I mean seriously, if you're kicked out or whatever, that is a serious amount of money+time down the swilly. I wonder how common expulsions are for total cut and paste jobs. Look at Zu googleberg!

flash1080

steddyeddy wrote: »

No it doesnt at all, I admit my field is restricted to biological fields were demands in areas such as research are high. I find it strange that people who invest time in a subject their presumably interested in would want to work so few hours!

I'd lost interest in working as an engineer. My 3rd and 4th week there I did a decent bit of work but then it was all paperwork or a bit of CAD, and I could get away with it so.... I wouldn't have learned anything if I'd put in a huge amount of effort, despite being in a high-tech field it wasn't demanding at all.

Naikon wrote: »

True. I've seen it happen a times myself. If I was a lecturer, I would never chance it though. What if the college stored all the work and found Lecturer X has passed 200 word for word wikipedia jobs? At that point, the student isn't the only one to blame.

I mean seriously, if you're kicked out or whatever, that is a serious amount of money+time down the swilly.

Your guess is as good as mine, but colleges would lose so many lecturers and the hassle involved would be something else, they'd probably think it's better to cover it up.

wow sierra

flash1080 wrote: »

A friend of mine in university will probably get a 2:1 for his 4th year engineering dissertation, and he only did a weeks work on it tops.

When you do a dissertation in 4th year you use all the skills you have learned in your 4 years in college - you would have done many of these already and would have a system as regards the dissertation itself. As to the content of the dissertation - I assume it is based on a series of lectures, study etc done over possibly a whole term - not the week he spent putting this information together.

I've never studies Engineering but I have done college presentations on Literature. You start preparing for those presentations the day you read the first line of the persons work, then you have your lectures, your academic criticism to read etc etc.

All that said you can get pretty high marks with limited amount of time put in, if you use that time effectively. In modern business lingo its called "working better rather than working harder" If he has learned that skill then fair play to him.

Despite all I have said above - I actually kind of agree that reasonable university grades are kinda easy to get.

flash1080

wow sierra wrote: »

When you do a dissertation in 4th year you use all the skills you have learned in your 4 years in college - you would have done many of these already and would have a system as regards the dissertation itself. As to the content of the dissertation - I assume it is based on a series of lectures, study etc done over possibly a whole term - not the week he spent putting this information together.

I've never studies Engineering but I have done college presentations on Literature. You start preparing for those presentations the day you read the first line of the persons work, then you have your lectures, your academic criticism to read etc etc.

All that said you can get pretty high marks with limited amount of time put in, if you use that time effectively. In modern business lingo its called "working better rather than working harder" If he has learned that skill then fair play to him.

Despite all I have said above - I actually kind of agree that reasonable university grades are kinda easy to get.

He's using the skills of lying and bullshítting that he learned alright. The weeks work has been spread out over the whole year. The project is a complete joke to be honest.

Columbia

I grade papers, and 2.1 is definitely the vaguest grade. In my department it's where about 60-65% of students fall, and to be honest within that band there is a wide range of abilities. A high 2.1 (68% let's say) suggests a significant 'spark' to the work, while a low 2.1 (60%) is given for papers which have a tentative grasp on grammar and spelling, and which show a very basic knowledge of the field.

I wouldn't say grades are 'inflated', but I would be in favour of realigning it so that;

65-69 = 2.1
60-64 = 2.2
50-59 = 3
<50 = fail

I think it's basically unfair that someone who gets a 68 (if they get a 69 the college will usually 'find' a way to get them the 70) would leave with the same 2.1 degree as someone who gets a 60, as those grades signify completely different standards in my view.

Naikon

flash1080 wrote: »

He's using the skills of lying and bullshítting that he learned alright. The weeks work has been spread out over the whole year. The project is a complete joke to be honest.

Take a look at the zu googleberg story. How about a PhD level approved work which was not even checked. It's good enough to turn around and point the finger, but this illustrates colleges are also to blame for dropping standards.

Take a look at this page. The pages in red indicate copied verbatim.
http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/Plagiate

Naikon

Columbia wrote: »

I grade papers, and 2.1 is definitely the vaguest grade. In my department it's where about 60-65% of students fall, and to be honest within that band there is a wide range of abilities. A high 2.1 (68% let's say) suggests a significant 'spark' to the work, while a low 2.1 (60%) is given for papers which have a tentative grasp on grammar and spelling, and which show a very basic knowledge of the field.

I wouldn't say grades are 'inflated', but I would be in favour of realigning it so that;

65-69 = 2.1
60-64 = 2.2
50-59 = 3
<50 = fail

I think it's basically unfair that someone who gets a 68 (if they get a 69 the college will usually 'find' a way to get them the 70) would leave with the same 2.1 degree as someone who gets a 60, as those grades signify completely different standards in my view.

This is a sham. The whole system appears to be rotton to the core. I used to hate the idea of written exams, but they really are the only way to actually prove someone knows their ****. That or an oral exam. "Ghostwriting" is a now on the uprise too I hear.

languagenerd

I think it depends on the lecturer/department within the college. Definitely no hint of grade inflation in my course!

They won't give us anything over 70 and most of the time, they won't even give that. I've handed in translations with only one word wrong that got 69%, and then was told that this was "an excellent grade". I know that's "the way it's done", but it makes no logical sense.

Naikon

Universities don't have any real across the board standardisation. That is the problem. We have proper regulation for practically everything but the subjectivity laden ivory towers of third level education. Accountable to nobody but their own seems to be the image projected lately.

flash1080

Columbia wrote: »

I grade papers, and 2.1 is definitely the vaguest grade. In my department it's where about 60-65% of students fall, and to be honest within that band there is a wide range of abilities. A high 2.1 (68% let's say) suggests a significant 'spark' to the work, while a low 2.1 (60%) is given for papers which have a tentative grasp on grammar and spelling, and which show a very basic knowledge of the field.

I wouldn't say grades are 'inflated', but I would be in favour of realigning it so that;

65-69 = 2.1
60-64 = 2.2
50-59 = 3
<50 = fail

I think it's basically unfair that someone who gets a 68 (if they get a 69 the college will usually 'find' a way to get them the 70) would leave with the same 2.1 degree as someone who gets a 60, as those grades signify completely different standards in my view.

If that happened lecturers would have to tighten up the marking schemes too.

Naikon wrote: »

This is a sham. The whole system appears to be rotton to the core. I used to hate the idea of exams, but they really are the only way to actually prove someone knows their ****. That or an oral exam.

Oral exams or presentations can be heavily affected by lecturers personal opinions on students. EDIT: They are important, but shouldn't have a huge weighting unless the examiners are independent.

My class had to present our final year work 3/4s of the way through the year, we were required to do some practical testing to justify our projects but a lot of us were doing our projects in conjunction with industry so we were working of their timeframes rather than that of the college and didn't have testing done by then so we ended up getting hammered for it, marks in the 50s and lower.

Naikon

flash1080 wrote: »

Oral exams or presentations can be heavily affected by lecturers personal opinions on students.

My class had to present our final year work 3/4s of the way through the year, we were required to do some practical testing to justify our projects but a lot of us were doing our projects in conjunction with industry so we were working of their timeframes rather than that of the college and didn't have testing done by then so we ended up getting hammered for it, marks in the 50s and lower.

Man that sucks. I know the feeling when you start to believe you are marked on a whim. Like it or not, Lecturers don't have to justify their marking all the time. Fringe marking. Sure, they tell you the process is clearly defined and absolute, but emotions tend to get in the way at times. We're fickle creatures, us humans...

Naikon

Domo230 wrote: »

My mates who do engineering are always working their arses off so im inclined to believe it is not the piece of piss you make it out to be.

From my own experiences (not in engineering though), College is hard work. Even arts which gets a bad rep requires work.

Never said it was not. I know college is tough going. It just pisses me off that the policies and decisions can be vague at times. Would you like missing out on a first because the marker didn't like your secondary points?
It's a reality with the way the system is structured at present. Can you honestly say that you have always recieved the grade you deserved? All colleges should be monitored by a third party on a regular basis.

mahamageehad

I don't know if grade inflation is the correct term tbh, it's more grade standardization.

In my course idiots who copy and paste other peoples code and use web templates etc can still get a high grade. High being in the 60's range. However no matter how excellent the project I have never seen anyone in my course hit the 90%'s. Even for projects that went above and beyond the brief and that the lecturers called fantastic and used as examples for the rest of the class.

We were told that giving very high grades for an excellent project wasn't going to happen as it leads students into thinking that they are better than they are. Ugh. However hand up anything at all and the lecturer can pass ya.

A friend of mine failed a class miserably last year. The vast majority of the mark (60% iirc) was for a group project. 20% was for an "exam" on Microsoft project (Think ECDL...in cell b12 add the name "Annie Body". :rolleyes:) which was a piece of píss. The final 20% was a written exam. However I managed to get 78% and she got like 30%. The Microsoft project was a guaranteed 20 % so the lecturer clearly marked her miserably for the project which was supposed to be a group mark because she didn't like her.

Colleges should sort of this subjective marking scheme before they worry about grade inflation imo.

languagenerd

Domo230 wrote: »

My mates who do engineering are always working their arses off so im inclined to believe it is not the piece of piss you make it out to be.

From my own experiences (not in engineering though), College is hard work. Even arts which gets a bad rep requires work.

I can't speak for other colleges, but in mine it's sometimes harder to get a 1st in arts subjects than in science! In some of the science degrees, there's a right or wrong answer, whereas arts courses are all marked subjectively and can vary depending on who marks them.

We have one particular lecturer who doesn't accept/acknowledge opinions other than her own. When I got a Spanish literature essay back she'd written "I liked your comments on X but didn't agree with what you said about Y". Other people in my class said they got the same thing. Why should it matter if she agrees with it? If it's well-argued and shows that you've read and put thought into the original text, then you should get a good grade, it shouldn't be a case where the only way to do well is to regurgitate your lecturer's opinion! Critics don't all agree but they're all considered valid...

The J Stands for Jay

flash1080 wrote: »

A friend of mine in university will probably get a 2:1 for his 4th year engineering dissertation, and he only did a weeks work on it tops.

Maybe that was a solid week with no sleep. Maybe he paid attention in the few lectures he attended and was able to knock off the dissertation in double quick time. Maybe he read round the subject over a long period of time and then spend a week spewing the dissertation out of his brain and into MS Word.

The J Stands for Jay

flash1080 wrote: »

they just make up marks to suit the curve.

This curve crap really bugs me. Luckily I was never graded on it.

dizzywizlw

In my course nobody is graded over ~75% AFAIK and it is a Humanities subject. It's naturally subjective so exams are utterly pointless and say more about ones ability to write fast and regurgitate rather than foster independent thought. I myself hover around the bottom of the 2.1 scale when it is an exam and around the 1st when it is essay based assessment. Exams for anything that isn't based in formulae makes feck all sense IMO.


Maybe,just maybe, if we focused on true continuous assessment instead of module based single papers or exams students could actively learn for the duration of their courses and would have the incentive of doing their coursework, readings etc.

Poor Craythur

flash1080 wrote: »

Yeah it'll never change. Sure there's a lot of lecturers who never read the work submitted. I've seen essays marked purely on the word count, one guy submitted the wrong ms word file by accident which contained an article copied and pasted direct from wikipedia, no change in font, and he got something like 65% lol

Naikon wrote: »

How was he not done for that? I hear colleges take this stuff seriously, to the point of kicking people out. What if they went back on his essay? Revocation? Mind you, the above would not surprise me at all. Some rules confuse the **** out of people.though.

I agree with Naikon, what kind of Mickey Mouse college did he attend? One guy from my college class got in very serious trouble for having a 25% plagarised literature review.

Poor Craythur

Columbia wrote: »

I grade papers, and 2.1 is definitely the vaguest grade. In my department it's where about 60-65% of students fall, and to be honest within that band there is a wide range of abilities. A high 2.1 (68% let's say) suggests a significant 'spark' to the work, while a low 2.1 (60%) is given for papers which have a tentative grasp on grammar and spelling, and which show a very basic knowledge of the field.

I wouldn't say grades are 'inflated', but I would be in favour of realigning it so that;

65-69 = 2.1
60-64 = 2.2
50-59 = 3
<50 = fail

I think it's basically unfair that someone who gets a 68 (if they get a 69 the college will usually 'find' a way to get them the 70) would leave with the same 2.1 degree as someone who gets a 60, as those grades signify completely different standards in my view.

As someone with a low 2.1 I totally agree. I definitely didn't grasp my degree subject as well as the people in the class who got a high 2.1. I didn't deserve the grade I received, it's a total fraud, I feel like a fraud. I could not have cared less about my research project and was one more bad answer away from a 2.2. It was a very hollow victory for me. This might seem like I'm being hard on myself here but if you saw my transcipts for the first three years of my degree, you would agree with me.

In fairness, many Masters and PhD projects look for people with no lower than a high 2.1, especially the top universities, so many seem to be wise to this like you are.

But I think your grading system is still flawed. Does someone who scores 65 really know more than someone who scores 64?