I hope that medical schools, and other education programs do not adopt that
give the higher grade nonsense. Why don't we just do what some of the earlier
humanists suggested- no entrance requirements, grades, tests. After all, in
order to self actualize, the students were going to be the best they could be
without the need to be assessed.
Richard Pisacreta, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychology
Ferris State University
Big Rapids, MI 49307
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: tips@acsun.frostburg.edu
Sent: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 10:00 PM
Subject: [tips] Re: final grades
Hi
My concern I guess is less with error (though that is the ultimate
justification) than with students who are marginally away from the
boundary of the next category and could, perhaps justifiably, argue that
their final letter grade should be one higher. Is anyone so convinced
of the precision of their marking that they could not imagine a student
with a final grade of 69 (C+ here) actually under other, largely random
circumstances ending up with a 70 (B here)? Certainly I could also
imagine the opposite (i.e., 70s that could have been 69s), but never
having faced large numbers (any) requests such as that below from IMA
STUDENT, I haven't sought a solution to a non-problem. All I can say is
that I do think that telling students they will get the benefit of the
doubt if they are close to a boundary appears to reduce demands for
remarking of questions, and excessive concerns about individual grades
when students should be focusing on learning the material.
To follow-up even more radically on Karl's suggestion, I believe there
is an effect (I've forgotten name) where averaging a score with randomly
(?) chosen values is purported to provide better estimates than the
original score. I await Karl's report how his future classes liked this
idea!
Take care
Jim
James M. Clark
Professor of Psychology
204-786-9757
204-774-4134 Fax
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 24-Dec-06 4:47:23 PM >>>
Hmmm, confidence intervals are two-sided, so wouldn't you have
less systematic error by adding 1 or 2 points to a random half of
those
scores just below a boundary and subtracting 1 or two points from the
other half?
========================================================================
========================
Dear Professor Clark:
I enrolled in your psychoscatology class this semester and
received a grade of C, my final average being a 71. Knowing that a
confidence interval on my grade would probably extend from 69 to 73, I
don't feel comfortable with a grade of C. Is there ANYTHING I can do
to
convince you change my grade to a D ?
Ima Student
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Clark [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 2:42 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: [tips] 7.63/5.00 Re: final grades
To avoid this problem and also to reduce somewhat students pleading
for
every little point through the year, I automatically add 1 (and
sometimes 2) marks to students who fall just below a grade boundary.
My
reasoning is that there is a confidence interval around each student
mark and that the confidence interval would easily include a grade
boundary one mark higher (e.g., mark of 69 overlaps with boundary of
70). Note this rationale is not susceptible to slippery slope
argument
(i.e., less likely that mark of 68 overlaps with boundary of 70). I
tell students at the start of the course that no one will end up with
a
mark below the next grade boundary. It also relieves somewhat any
guilt
I might feel about the subjectivity of my marking of written papers or
answers on tests.
Take care
Jim
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