re: [tips] lazy American students.........maybe not quite that bad
On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:31:53 -0800, Edward Pollak wrote: I wish I could send TIPS some of the blog entries written by a young cousin of mine who was teaching English in China at some private schools for the children of fairly wealthy families. The poor work ethic, sense of entitlement, lack of respect for authority that she described (for the majority of her students) was appalling even by modern American standards. Of course she also describes some outstanding students but these were a decided minority. If you consider that only the cream of the Chinese crop get to come to the USA for study, the comparison made in the original article is not a fair one. I don't mean to defend the lack of work ethic in the bulk of our modern student body you can't compare what are likely elite Chinese students with run-of-the-mill American students. Another factor: the Chinese students are likely from the privileged classes and don't have to hold down part or full time jobs while studying here. Many of our students do. The issue of biased sampling in U.S. account of students should also be kept in mind. Consider the following article which talks about U.S. students who are likely to be elite as well though the point of the article is that trying to be elite may take a significant toll; see: http://ed.stanford.edu/suse/faculty/displayFacultyNews.php?tablename=notify1id=401 In NYC, the financial and social elite often reckon the trajectory of their children's educational and social life course at an early age. This is what make stories about not getting one's child into the right pre-school program so hilarious and so sad. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
RE: [tips] Lazy American Students and Their Grades
Jim raised an interesting point for me - Another relevant point may be the consequences of the disappearing males for grades in university at least (although factors leading to their disappearance could have impact prior to university). Females tend to be more conscientious (e.g., studying) and demonstrate other desirable academic qualities moreso than males. If these factors influence grades, then would it again not be expected that larger proportion of females (and perhaps foreign students, re the article that stimulated this discussion?) could produce higher grades? Overall, statistics in Canada indicate about 2/3rds of university students are female. We just started admitting men. It did seem to me that while we were a womens' college that I did not experience many of the problems that you all talked about at your coed institutions. We have been wondering how much that will change with our transition. For the first time I am seeing some of the issues about classroom etiquette that I have read about from you all. I don't have any firm impressions about grades at this point, but in a few years I should be able to look at changes in grade averages in my own courses. Dennis -- Dennis M. Goff Charles A. Dana Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology Randolph College (Founded as Randolph-Macon Woman's College in 1891) Lynchburg VA 24503 -Original Message- From: Jim Clark [mailto:j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca] Sent: Mon 12/21/2009 7:53 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] Lazy American Students and Their Grades Hi Attached are slides from a talk on our Course Comparison Index (CCI) used at U of Winnipeg to regulate grades somewhat. I collected some data on grade inflation for the talk from a variety of sources. Some of strongest evidence comes from common measures (e.g., in sciences) used for entering students over decades, although perhaps coverage of content could have changed over time. Also appears clear that high school grades have inflated in that entering students (despite representing broader swathe of humanity) have higher high school grades, which have not (always) translated into higher university grades, as demonstrated from data from U Western Ontario. If students enter university with inflated expectations then they may discontinue their studies when those expectations are not met. That is, some kind of selection process operates during and after early years of university. One of other interesting findings is that adjuncts tend to give higher grades than regular faculty. And of course universities have become more dependent on use of part-time people over recent decades. And of course universities have become more specialized (i.e., less Liberal Arts), so that students now get to select most of their courses from specialized areas, rather than students taking broad range of courses. It appears clear, for example, that education students have high gpas (relative to other students) and that they take a large percentage of their courses in education (with elevated grades) and a relatively small percentage outside education (with lower grades). Perhaps pressures to maintain averages for our students are even greater within certain faculties and departments than within institution at large. One thing that I have often wondered about but never looked into is the implications for grades of the Flynn effect (i.e., increasing intelligence over decades). That is, perhaps students should be getting higher grades if they are becoming more intelligent with each generation. Another relevant point may be the consequences of the disappearing males for grades in university at least (although factors leading to their disappearance could have impact prior to university). Females tend to be more conscientious (e.g., studying) and demonstrate other desirable academic qualities moreso than males. If these factors influence grades, then would it again not be expected that larger proportion of females (and perhaps foreign students, re the article that stimulated this discussion?) could produce higher grades? Overall, statistics in Canada indicate about 2/3rds of university students are female. With respect to grades and course evaluations, I believe the correlation between evaluations and grades is quite modest, although that could still be consistent with a graduate shift over time in grading practices because of concerns about evaluations. Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca Paul C Bernhardt pcbernha...@frostburg.edu 21-Dec-09 6:24:32 PM Beware, rant ahead, only you can determine if it is a righteous rant or not. The problem appears to me to be determined by three interacting factors: 1) student evaluations
Re: [tips] lazy American students.........maybe not quite that bad
There are some good points in this article (although the irony of Stanford inveighing against elitism is pretty broad). When the author writes, however, that students today have no time to hang out or delve into deep problems or reflect on what they are learning, I suspect that she has strung together disparate aspects of her own mental life and theirs. I only wish the problems I ran into were overworking students. Admittedly, York is not elite by any measure. I am still surprised (well, maybe just saddened) that in my stats class every year, some do not know what an exponent is, most do not know what a factorial is, and nearly all are unable to do (or even follow?) the three lines of algebra I perform each year to convert a simple power formula into one that gives the number of subjects required (I am so used to NOT losing them with the phrase solve for n that I can hardly say it anymore). Perhaps they have been too busy learning the finer points of soccer and piano. If so, I am content with that trade-off. Perhaps too many of them have full-time jobs on the side. If so, then it is one of the few problems that can be easily solved by the application of money (and we should do that). I fear, however, that too many have been too busy learning Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 chri...@yorku.ca http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ == Mike Palij wrote: On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:31:53 -0800, Edward Pollak wrote: I wish I could send TIPS some of the blog entries written by a young cousin of mine who was teaching English in China at some private schools for the children of fairly wealthy families. The poor work ethic, sense of entitlement, lack of respect for authority that she described (for the majority of her students) was appalling even by modern American standards. Of course she also describes some outstanding students but these were a decided minority. If you consider that only the cream of the Chinese crop get to come to the USA for study, the comparison made in the original article is not a fair one. I don't mean to defend the lack of work ethic in the bulk of our modern student body you can't compare what are likely elite Chinese students with run-of-the-mill American students. Another factor: the Chinese students are likely from the privileged classes and don't have to hold down part or full time jobs while studying here. Many of our students do. The issue of biased sampling in U.S. account of students should also be kept in mind. Consider the following article which talks about U.S. students who are likely to be elite as well though the point of the article is that trying to be elite may take a significant toll; see: http://ed.stanford.edu/suse/faculty/displayFacultyNews.php?tablename=notify1id=401 In NYC, the financial and social elite often reckon the trajectory of their children's educational and social life course at an early age. This is what make stories about not getting one's child into the right pre-school program so hilarious and so sad. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] lazy American students
Beth Benoit wrote: Wow. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/12/21/my_lazy_american_students/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed1 So, what does your wow mean, Beth? Does this strike you as surprising? Outrageous? Offensive? It seems pretty much common knowledge to me. (And despite what the article says, I wouldn't suggest that [white, anglo-scottish-irish, long-standing] Canadians are much better than American kids on this score.) And I think I know where it comes from too. US (North American?, Western?) culture is crammed full of the message that we are superior, we are special, and it is something that is essential to us, not the product of some particular effort that we have expended (though perhaps our ancestors did). One sees this message everywhere from politics, to religion, to entertainment, to educational practice (virtually no one fails, everyone must be retained and eventually graduated, the slightest quiver of anxiety is immediately declared a disability and accommodated). The message is: you are a success virtually in virtue of just being you (think the self-esteem movement). Little (but loyalty) is required of you. You were born into the greatest, richest, free-est, most Godly, and, when necessary, most powerful nation/culture/civilization that has ever graced the face of the earth. Anyone who says otherwise is just hateful, jealous, and anti-(insert your country's name here). Can you imagine any US politician getting much electoral traction by announcing We have become self-indulgent and have fallen behind many other countries in education and productivity. The only way to retrieve some portion of our former international stature is for us to cut back in our personal lives (smaller, more efficient cars, houses, etc), work harder (both at work and school), pay off our debts (both as individuals and as a nation), and show a willingness to cooperate with other countries in dealing the major international challenges that face us? Never. This is not to say that India, China, and everywhere else doesn't have its share of ugly nationalistic, jingoistic, ethnocentric, overly-prideful rhetoric. They all do. (And to be entirely fair, the ones who travel to the US to get educated are not average for their culture. They are eager to get ahead, whereas a lot of the locals we face as teachers virtually fell into our classrooms). It is, rather, that people from developing countries just don't mistake political posturing for being knowledgeable and working hard to become so. They can't afford to. What they are proud of is what they -- as Indians, Chinese, etc. -- can *accomplish*. Americans, all too often, are proud of being, well, American. (Mutatis mutandis for many other Western countries.) It used to be called decadence. It has brought down many another (every?) empire. And it is a very difficult whirlpool to escape from. Happy solstice! Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 chri...@yorku.ca http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ == --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] lazy American students
I'm not sure but I think Chris fell out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. His comments below seem somewhat relevant to the content of the article that Beth provides a link to but without more information about the students the article writer is talking about, it is unclear whether Chris' criticism's apply to all American students of a certain race and class or to some fraction of them (the author of the article is unlikely to have such data as she self-identifies as a teacher of rhetoric and history and not a researcher). I think Chris' rant is somewhat misplaced. The general issue that he is referring to is that of American exceptionalism, a concept that is easy to recognize but difficult to pin down. For some background on this idea see the Wikipedia entry (standard disclaimers apply): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism The idea appears to be first developed by Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America and here's a website that provides a little more on how Tocqueville conceived it: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/american-exceptionalism.htm American exceptionalism has been an idea that has been recently promoted by U.S. conservatives and downplayed by moderates and liberals. Consider the following comments by Dick Cheney about President Obama being weak on American exceptionalism: |I think most of us believe, and most presidents believe and talk |about, the truly exceptional nature of America--our history, |where we come from, our belief in our constitutional values |and principles, our advocacy for freedom and democracy, the |fact that we've provided it for millions of people all over the globe |and done so unselfishly. There's never been a nation like the |United States of America in world history. And yet, when you |have a president who goes around and bows to his host and |then proceeds to apologize profusely for the United States, |I find that deeply disturbing. That says to me this is a guy who |doesn't fully understand or share that view of American exceptionalism |that I think most of us believe in. http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/12/is_dick_cheney_living_in_a_pre-2008_world.php For other conservative viewpoints on American Exceptionalism, see: http://www.american.com/archive/2008/april-04-08/understanding-american-exceptionalism Now, whether or not U.S. citizens have a sense of American Exceptionalism and whether this is the basis for bad behavior among certain groups of students is an interesting empirical hypothesis. However, Kara Miller's article is an opinion piece and not an empirical study. How many problems could a student in research methods find in the assertions she makes about her American students? Perhaps she is a magnet for lazy American students or her courses or her school or...whatever. Miller is entitled to her opinions about her students as is Chris is entitled to his opinions about U.S. citizens. But opinions are still opinions. It is better to have opinions consistent with empirical facts but everyone is well aware that this not a requirement. Sometimes an opinion is just a rant. Happy Solstice, Y'all! -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:14:21 -0800, Christopher D. Green wrote: Beth Benoit wrote: Wow. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/12/21/my_lazy_american_students/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed1 So, what does your wow mean, Beth? Does this strike you as surprising? Outrageous? Offensive? It seems pretty much common knowledge to me. (And despite what the article says, I wouldn't suggest that [white, anglo-scottish-irish, long-standing] Canadians are much better than American kids on this score.) And I think I know where it comes from too. US (North American?, Western?) culture is crammed full of the message that we are superior, we are special, and it is something that is essential to us, not the product of some particular effort that we have expended (though perhaps our ancestors did). One sees this message everywhere from politics, to religion, to entertainment, to educational practice (virtually no one fails, everyone must be retained and eventually graduated, the slightest quiver of anxiety is immediately declared a disability and accommodated). The message is: you are a success virtually in virtue of just being you (think the self-esteem movement). Little (but loyalty) is required of you. You were born into the greatest, richest, free-est, most Godly, and, when necessary, most powerful nation/culture/civilization that has ever graced the face of the earth. Anyone who says otherwise is just hateful, jealous, and anti-(insert your country's name here). Can you imagine any US politician getting much electoral traction by announcing We have become self-indulgent and have fallen behind many other countries in education and productivity. The only way to retrieve some portion of our former
RE: [tips] Lazy American Students and Their Grades
The mean GPA for our psychology majors at Emory is around a 3.4. No wonder so many of them become incensed at me when I give them Bs or even B pluses in their classes; I'm lowering most of their grade point averages. ...Scott Scott O. Lilienfeld, Ph.D. Professor Editor, Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice Department of Psychology, Room 473 Psychology and Interdisciplinary Sciences (PAIS) Emory University 36 Eagle Row Atlanta, Georgia 30322 slil...@emory.edu (404) 727-1125 Psychology Today Blog: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-skeptical-psychologist 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-140513111X.html Scientific American Mind: Facts and Fictions in Mental Health Column: http://www.scientificamerican.com/sciammind/ The Master in the Art of Living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his intellectual passions. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him - he is always doing both. - Zen Buddhist text (slightly modified) From: Wuensch, Karl L. [mailto:wuens...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 5:19 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Lazy American Students and Their Grades At my university, the undergraduate catalog defines grades this way: A -- excellent B -- good C -- average D -- barely passed F -- failed I -- incomplete So, C is average, eh? To check this definition I downloaded all grades for undergraduate courses for the just completed semester. Here is the distribution of final grades: A -- 38% B -- 30% C -- 18% D -- 7% F -- 7% I-- 1% Mode = A, Mean = B, Median = B. I have proposed that the catalog be updated to read this way: A - Average B - Barely average C - Could have been average if the student had attended class, read the book, completed the assignments, etc. D - did worse than Dubya F - Failed, but if the student begs enough for post hoc extra credit, this can be changed. I - I am still trying to decide whether to give the student an A after e put so much effort into persuading me it is not e's that e did not get an A and that I would be responsible for ruining e's life if I gave any grade other than an A. From: Christopher D. Green [mailto:chri...@yorku.ca] Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 12:16 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] lazy American students Nicely stated, Chris. [file:///C:\Documents%20and%20Settings\Vati\Application%20Data\Microsoft\Signatures\Cent_logo.jpg]http://www.ecu.edu/ --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu) This e-mail message (including any attachments) is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message (including any attachments) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender by reply e-mail message and destroy all copies of the original message (including attachments). --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
re: [tips] Lazy American Students and Their Grades
Before we start engaging in Who's got the Biggest Grade Inflation Problem, perhaps it should be noted that grade inflation is a widespread phenomenon, why it even occurs in *GASP!* Canada! Certainly not definitive but one should take a look at the Wikipedia entry on grade inflation (standard disclaimers apply): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation From the Wiki entry it seems that one solution to the problem is simply having the department/division/school/whoever has the authority to mandate that only a certain percentage of each grade can be given in a course. One can use a normal curve to justify such a scheme (but one will have problems with such a justification) or other criteria such as no more than 15% of a class can be 'A' . Ties on the borderline will simply have to cry about it. Some people will probably applaud this solution, some will say that it is worse than the problem it addresses. I guess it all has to do with how one thinks about the distribution of intelligence in our students, how many really deserve a certain grade, how many do workwe are satistfied with, etc. Personal Anecdote Department: back some time in 1990s I remember reading an article (popular magazine, not a journal) about grade inflation at, I believe, Stanford (though it may have been one of the Ivy League schools). Apparently students were receiving only As and Bs in courses. The reason for this appeared to be that student could drop a course without consequence up to the 12th or so week in the semester. So, students who saw that they were failing going in the final weeks could drop the course with their G.P.A. unaffected. I think that they changed the policy after it became public but my memory isn't so good on that point. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:18:13 -0800, Karl Wuensch wrote: At my university, the undergraduate catalog defines grades this way: A -- excellent B -- good C -- average D -- barely passed F -- failed I -- incomplete So, C is average, eh? To check this definition I downloaded all grades for undergraduate courses for the just completed semester. Here is the distribution of final grades: A -- 38% B -- 30% C -- 18% D -- 7% F -- 7% I-- 1% Mode = A, Mean = B, Median = B. I have proposed that the catalog be updated to read this way: A - Average B - Barely average C - Could have been average if the student had attended class, read the book, completed the assignments, etc. D - did worse than Dubya F - Failed, but if the student begs enough for post hoc extra credit, this can be changed. I - I am still trying to decide whether to give the student an A after e put so much effort into persuading me it is not e's that e did not get an A and that I would be responsible for ruining e's life if I gave any grade other than an A. From: Christopher D. Green [mailto:chri...@yorku.ca] Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 12:16 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] lazy American students Nicely stated, Chris. --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
re: [tips] Lazy American Students and Their Grades
Make Palij wrote: The reason for this appeared to be that students could drop a course without consequence up to the 12th or so week in the semester. So, students who saw that they were failing going in the final weeks could drop the course with their G.P.A. unaffected. --- If this were true, and was the reason for grade inflation at that institution, then we should have nothing to worry about. The students were still receiving accurate grades and credit for courses in which competent work had been completed. However, I doubt that the grade inflation disappeared after that loophole was closed. It sounds like a rationalization invented to explain the source of the inflation as something other than a reduction of standards. When I presented clear evidence of grade inflation to my institution, the response was students are better now than they were then, therefore deserving of higher grades. I had to point out that the SAT scores had declined somewhat over the time period involved. Bill Scott --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] lazy American students
My earlier remarks were remarkably intemperate. I apologize to anyone who was offended. I think the dissonance caused by the various political failures of late that have been declared to be victories (e.g., climate, health, war) has gotten to me more than I realized. Have nice holiday everyone. Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 chri...@yorku.ca http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ == Mike Palij wrote: I'm not sure but I think Chris fell out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. His comments below seem somewhat relevant to the content of the article that Beth provides a link to but without more information about the students the article writer is talking about, it is unclear whether Chris' criticism's apply to all American students of a certain race and class or to some fraction of them (the author of the article is unlikely to have such data as she self-identifies as a teacher of rhetoric and history and not a researcher). I think Chris' rant is somewhat misplaced. The general issue that he is referring to is that of American exceptionalism, a concept that is easy to recognize but difficult to pin down. For some background on this idea see the Wikipedia entry (standard disclaimers apply): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism The idea appears to be first developed by Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America and here's a website that provides a little more on how Tocqueville conceived it: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/american-exceptionalism.htm American exceptionalism has been an idea that has been recently promoted by U.S. conservatives and downplayed by moderates and liberals. Consider the following comments by Dick Cheney about President Obama being weak on American exceptionalism: |I think most of us believe, and most presidents believe and talk |about, the truly exceptional nature of America--our history, |where we come from, our belief in our constitutional values |and principles, our advocacy for freedom and democracy, the |fact that we've provided it for millions of people all over the globe |and done so unselfishly. There's never been a nation like the |United States of America in world history. And yet, when you |have a president who goes around and bows to his host and |then proceeds to apologize profusely for the United States, |I find that deeply disturbing. That says to me this is a guy who |doesn't fully understand or share that view of American exceptionalism |that I think most of us believe in. http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/12/is_dick_cheney_living_in_a_pre-2008_world.php For other conservative viewpoints on American Exceptionalism, see: http://www.american.com/archive/2008/april-04-08/understanding-american-exceptionalism Now, whether or not U.S. citizens have a sense of American Exceptionalism and whether this is the basis for bad behavior among certain groups of students is an interesting empirical hypothesis. However, Kara Miller's article is an opinion piece and not an empirical study. How many problems could a student in research methods find in the assertions she makes about her American students? Perhaps she is a magnet for lazy American students or her courses or her school or...whatever. Miller is entitled to her opinions about her students as is Chris is entitled to his opinions about U.S. citizens. But opinions are still opinions. It is better to have opinions consistent with empirical facts but everyone is well aware that this not a requirement. Sometimes an opinion is just a rant. Happy Solstice, Y'all! -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:14:21 -0800, Christopher D. Green wrote: Beth Benoit wrote: Wow. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/12/21/my_lazy_american_students/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed1 So, what does your wow mean, Beth? Does this strike you as surprising? Outrageous? Offensive? It seems pretty much common knowledge to me. (And despite what the article says, I wouldn't suggest that [white, anglo-scottish-irish, long-standing] Canadians are much better than American kids on this score.) And I think I know where it comes from too. US (North American?, Western?) culture is crammed full of the message that we are superior, we are special, and it is something that is essential to us, not the product of some particular effort that we have expended (though perhaps our ancestors did). One sees this message everywhere from politics, to religion, to entertainment, to educational practice (virtually no one fails, everyone must be retained and eventually graduated, the slightest quiver of anxiety is immediately declared a disability and accommodated). The message is: you are a success virtually in virtue of just
RE: [tips] Lazy American Students and Their Grades
Beware, rant ahead, only you can determine if it is a righteous rant or not. The problem appears to me to be determined by three interacting factors: 1) student evaluations of faculty (at least, them being given such heavy weight at some institutions compared to other criteria for RPT*), 2) course drift (meaning that some faculty teach a much less rigorous version that students shop for and reward that faculty member with higher evaluations), and 3) retention pressure from administrators. For me the solution needs to be departmentally established criteria lists for what is to be demonstrated knowledge and skills from each course, including mandated papers for upper division courses with departmentally established evaluation rubrics, required high consequence (at least 25% of course grade) and comprehensive final exams, upper limits on extra credit opportunities, not allowing curving of exam grades, etc. If those things are done, there is no need to worry about setting maximum % of students getting an A, etc. It becomes possible for all the students in the class to excel and deserve and A, and likewise, all the students in the class to earn an F. Linked with those criteria and requirements needs to be evaluation of not only the course design but also evaluation of the instructor's evaluations of students, to ensure that they are hewing to the rubrics, appropriate quality and difficulty of the test questions depending on the level of the course and type of material, etc. That evaluation of the faculty, rather than the evaluation by students should be the one given heavy weight for RPT. It would be wise to have outside, but reasonably related departments, evaluate these issues for entire other departments at the institution on a periodic basis, to ensure that departments are not conspiring internally to make everyone at their private Lake Wobegon look above average undeservedly. The cry that would certainly come from many faculty if such an audacious proposal were to be seriously floated is: ACADEMIC FREEDOM! I am the expert about my course and I know best how to teach and evaluate the students. Nobody, even those within my department who are also competent to teach my course should dare tell me what I should be doing with the material or requirements. The other cry that would certainly come would be from administrators who would see more students dismissed from the institution, cutting into budgets and creating multiple headaches for them dealing with irate parents. There would also be concerns that graduate schools would not be willing to take on students from the institution, diminishing prestige, etc. But, that presumes grad schools can't be made aware of the new way of running the ship, and therefore wouldn't be able to know that the 3.5 student from the school with a mean graduating 2.9 was a superior candidate than the 3.5 student from the school with a mean graduating 3.2. In my opinion, I doubt we'd see many more be dismissed because a large number of our students have learned that there is no real need to work to maximum capability. This system should motivate them to work to maximum capability. They will earn lower grades, on average, but they would know what their grades meant. OK... rant over... I know it is a completely impossible suggestion. Thank you for your time. I'll now put on my flame-proof jammies. *It is possible that at some institutions the criteria for evaluating faculty are also suffering from grade inflation such that all faculty get excellent ratings on all elements and the only variable that sorts the faculty at all is the student evals, making them of paramount importance. Paul C. Bernhardt Department of Psychology Frostburg State University Frostburg, Maryland -Original Message- From: Mike Palij [mailto:m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Mon 12/21/2009 5:56 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: re: [tips] Lazy American Students and Their Grades Before we start engaging in Who's got the Biggest Grade Inflation Problem, perhaps it should be noted that grade inflation is a widespread phenomenon, why it even occurs in *GASP!* Canada! Certainly not definitive but one should take a look at the Wikipedia entry on grade inflation (standard disclaimers apply): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation From the Wiki entry it seems that one solution to the problem is simply having the department/division/school/whoever has the authority to mandate that only a certain percentage of each grade can be given in a course. One can use a normal curve to justify such a scheme (but one will have problems with such a justification) or other criteria such as no more than 15% of a class can be 'A' . Ties on the borderline will simply have to cry about it. Some people will probably applaud this solution, some will say that it is worse than the problem it addresses. I guess it all has to do
Re: [tips] lazy American students
Christopher D. Green wrote: Beth Benoit wrote: Wow. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/12/21/my_lazy_american_students/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed1 I got an interesting lesson in this issue from my son -- prior to Beth's post. He was home from a pretty-decent engineering school and he was feeling discouraged. I asked him what was the problem and he said that the school had turned into a diploma mill. I asked him what he meant by this term since this is a well-known institution. He said that foreign students were coming to the US to get a US-institution-degree because that was the gateway to advancement in their countries. He was discouraged that they were focused on what to do to get the grade alone and would never disagree/take an independent stand if it might affect their grade. So, I will point out that we may have a correlation between American-citizenship and GPA but, like all correlations, the causality is murky often. Ken --- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. steel...@appstate.edu Professor Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA --- --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
re: [tips] Lazy American Students and Their Grades
On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:31:54 -0800, William Scott wrote: Make Palij wrote: The reason for this appeared to be that students could drop a course without consequence up to the 12th or so week in the semester. So, students who saw that they were failing going in the final weeks could drop the course with their G.P.A. unaffected. --- Please note that the above quote is from an ancedote that I was relaying and not a result from a research study. I even labelled this Personal Anecdote Department in order to make clear that one should be cautious about making the anecdote=data confusion. That being said, more comments below. If this were true, and was the reason for grade inflation at that institution, then we should have nothing to worry about. The students were still receiving accurate grades and credit for courses in which competent work had been completed. Or students could look for teachers that were easy graders or gave courses with lax standards. I'm sure that one can come up with all sorts of alternative reasons for why the grades of the students with the 12th week drop option would not be an accurate reflection of that student's performance unless: (1) there were uniform, valid, and reliable testing for the material in a course that provided scores that were comparable across instructors, departments, and time, and (2) one has a specific theory as to the type of knowledge that a person should have from a specific course and how the testing provides evidence of the existence of such knowledge and its extent. If the above conditions can be met, shouldn't we have national tests for each college course that would fairly evaluate all students taking a specific course (e.g., psychological statistics)? However, I doubt that the grade inflation disappeared after that loophole was closed. Because my imcomplete memory is irritating me, I've tried to find some corroboration for it. One source is a NY Times article from May 31, 1994 titled At Stanford, A Rebellion of Grades. If you have access to the Proquest newspaper database, you can find it there. Some points made by the article: (1) There is no grade of F at Stanford (2) A grade of C is fast becoming extinct (3) A student could drop a course on the day of the final exam with no consequences (4) The median grade for undergraduates in the previous year was A- Now I'm not sure but I do have a feeling the grade distribution might have changed after this point in time (the Wikipedia entry refers to Stanford but does not provide much information -- any Stanford grads out in Tipsland?). The point of the article was that the faculty was attempting to institute new grading policies. However, not all people were in support of such a move, as expressed in the following opinion by a former Stanford student: http://www.utwatch.org/archives/subtex/cleaver_issue4.html It sounds like a rationalization invented to explain the source of the inflation as something other than a reduction of standards. When I presented clear evidence of grade inflation to my institution, the response was students are better now than they were then, therefore deserving of higher grades. I had to point out that the SAT scores had declined somewhat over the time period involved. There is research on these points if one is interested, often by political conservatives as represented in an article by Thomas Reeves on the website of the National Association of Scholars; see: http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?Doc_Id=708 By the way, what was your suggested solution to grade inflation to your administration? Was it forcing grades to follow a particular distribution? What was the rationale for this? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
