{"id":72244,"date":"2024-03-27T00:01:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T04:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=72244"},"modified":"2024-03-27T00:01:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T04:01:27","slug":"if-uni-marks-are-going-up-does-that-mean-theres-a-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/if-uni-marks-are-going-up-does-that-mean-theres-a-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"If uni marks are going up, does that mean there\u2019s a problem?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

In 1894, Harvard University commissioned a report on grading standards,\u00a0due to concerns<\/a>\u00a0that:
\nGrades A and B are sometimes given too readily \u2013 Grade A for work of no very high merit, and Grade B for work not far above mediocrity.<\/em><\/p>\n

More than a century later, the fear of declining academic standards continues. In Australia, there are\u00a0ongoing media reports<\/a>\u00a0about universities awarding increasing numbers of high grades. Evidence has also been found in the\u00a0United Kingdom<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0United States<\/a>. Some US studies suggest grade averages have been steadily increasing since at least\u00a0the early 1960s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This week, a report by academics at the University of Sydney\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0a 234% increase in the number of high distinctions awarded to students at the university between 2011 and 2021 (the university notes it changed its grading model in 2012).<\/p>\n

Education experts call this \u201cgrade inflation<\/a>\u201d. It is often presented as a negative, a sign of lowering standards. However, this is\u00a0only one way<\/a>\u00a0to look at the phenomenon of marks going up.<\/p>\n

What are grades for?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Behind concerns about grade inflation are assumptions about what grades are and what they are meant to do.<\/p>\n

Several decades ago, assessment used to be \u201cnorm referenced<\/a>\u201d. This means the performance of students was measured against their peers. In this system, the best students get high distinctions, the worst fail and there\u2019s a bell curve in between. This holds true regardless of the quality of the teaching and the capability of the students.<\/p>\n

A high distinction in this system communicates you were one of the best students. It\u2019s a commodity valuable primarily because of its rarity, like a gold medal at the Olympics. It says nothing about what you are capable of, because your performance was entirely judged against what your peers could do.<\/p>\n

But norm referenced assessment has since gone out of fashion. In Australia, the\u00a0Higher Education Standards Framework<\/a>\u00a0now requires students to be assessed against predetermined standards. If a student meets the standard for a high distinction, they get one.<\/p>\n

The mark of high distinction signals they met a very high standard. The performance of their peers does not matter. If there\u2019s a particularly strong student cohort, or improvements to teaching, more people get high grades.<\/p>\n

There has been a change in assessment<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Grades are the product of assessment, so significant changes to assessment in recent years may also have driven grade inflation.<\/p>\n

On top of the move towards standards-based assessments, many universities now give students rubrics (or scoring guides) before they begin their work.<\/p>\n

These guides tell students how their work will be graded. So it\u2019s no surprise they\u00a0can?<\/strong>\u00a0lead to significant improvements<\/a>\u00a0in student performance. If we tell students\u00a0what good work looks like<\/a>, they are more likely to be able to do it and achieve higher grades.<\/p>\n

Similarly, there is growing attention given to the quality of\u00a0feedback practices in higher education<\/a>. We know feedback is a\u00a0significant part<\/a>\u00a0of student learning.<\/p>\n

So, in a standards-based grading system, where grades are directly tied to student learning outcomes, this improvement in performance should naturally translate to higher grades.<\/p>\n

Other explanations<\/strong><\/h4>\n

There are other explanations for why grades have been going up.<\/p>\n

Since 1979, some academics have been arguing\u00a0student evaluations<\/a>\u00a0drive grade inflation.<\/p>\n

This refers to the increasing practice of universities asking students for feedback on their lecturers and tutors, which in turn has an impact on academics\u2019 career progression.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0logic is<\/a>, if teachers give students a better grade they will get better evaluation scores.<\/p>\n

But while there is\u00a0some correlation<\/a>\u00a0between students who get better grades giving better scores to their teacher, it\u2019s not clear if this is a causal link. It might be that successful students like their teachers more, or perhaps students learn more from people they think are good teachers.<\/p>\n

Grade improvement\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Society depends on universities to produce competent graduates and grades are one signal of competence.<\/p>\n

But we need to be careful about equating rising grades with declining academic standards.<\/p>\n

If better teaching is enabling students to meet a higher standard then\u00a0it\u2019s not grade inflation<\/a>, it\u2019s actually \u201cgrade improvement<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Author Bios:<\/strong> Phillip Dawson is Professor and Co-Director, Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning and Thomas Corbin is a Research Fellow both at Deakin University<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1894, Harvard University commissioned a report on grading standards,\u00a0due to concerns\u00a0that: Grades A and B are sometimes given too readily \u2013 Grade A for work of no very high merit, and Grade B for work not far above mediocrity. More than a century later, the fear of declining academic standards continues. In Australia, there […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[136886],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-72244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-grading"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIf uni marks are going up, does that mean there\u2019s a problem? - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/if-uni-marks-are-going-up-does-that-mean-theres-a-problem\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If uni marks are going up, does that mean there\u2019s a problem? - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In 1894, Harvard University commissioned a report on grading standards,\u00a0due to concerns\u00a0that: Grades A and B are sometimes given too readily \u2013 Grade A for work of no very high merit, and Grade B for work not far above mediocrity. 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