In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Stan Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >(Please don't send e-mail copies of public follow-ups.)
>Robert J. MacG. Dawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in sci.stat.edu: >> Grading is largely for the benefit of future instructors and employers. >As a practical matter, I think that's true. Particularly in >sequential courses, grades are highly useful in establishing whether >students are ready for the next course. I think most employers look >more at the grade average than at the grade for a particular course, >though I'm sure there are some that do the latter. >>The student usually knows how much of the material they have understood >>without benefit of a final exam. >Here we differ. How many times have we heard from students, "I >really knew this stuff. How did I get only a 64?"? Of course >sometimes the problem is a poorly written exam, but not always. I do not believe that students are at all accurate judges. They might be better at it if they had been taking conceptual courses, but still not that good. They make both types of errors in evaluation. It is often hard to persuade graduate students that they are good enough, and many greatly overestimate how well they can use the material. -- This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. Herman Rubin, Deptartment of Statistics, Purdue University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558 . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
