Grading & Motivation

[Dogan Kokdemir]

Hi all,   The problem is universal and related not only to psychology lectures but also to others:   I have a problem in grading students; that is, most of the students (if not all) study for taking "A"s "B"s .. etc. and most of them are ready for getting "C" if you gurantee that nobody wants them to do things for the lecture.   More importantly, I believed that there are unneglible amount of students with very high motivation and effort. Unfortunately, I am not sure that by concentrating on "bad" students I loose the contact with "good" students or not. In other words, I want "good" students to get "A"s and "B"s and want "bad" students to get "F"s. ... And the question:   Does it sound good for you that I will give "A" and "A-" for the (let's say) top %5 of the students wherease give "F" and "D"s for the last %5 regardless of their actual score on the lecture. I know this curve mechanism can be stresfull for most of the students but I wonder by this method I could discriminate "bad"s from "good"s.   Thank your for your comments.   Dogan Kokdemir, M.Sc. Baskent University Ankara - Turkey