Purpose: This paper focuses on the factors related to faculty workload in the context of resource scarcity to examine whether there is a relationship between them and grade inflation. Design/methodology/approach: As for methodological novelty, the authors created an indicator of students' expectations about grades that is related to grade…

Despite the accumulated evidence that retention is an ineffective and potentially harmful remedial strategy, several countries struggle with high levels of retention in compulsory schooling. This article provides evidence of the impact of the Portuguese national educational policy "Programa Mais Sucesso Escolar" (PMSE) using class size,…

This article takes up the "special strangeness" of grading practices in the graduate creative writing workshop, based on the author's research, personal experience, and interviews with the faculty of her doctoral creative writing program. Using a structure of notes, the author attempts to make sense of the way grades are understood by both teacher…

There is great interest in understanding the potential of teacher incentives to improve student achievement. In fact, teacher incentives, either individual or collective, may improve student achievement if they succeed in aligning the public or social goals with the goals of the teacher. However, an approach in which reward is based on outputs can…

This investigation documents an intervention that successfully counteracted a grade inflation trend at a small, Catholic, liberal arts university in the eastern United States. The intervention produced a significant drop in grades awarded by full-time faculty, but not by adjunct faculty who were not yet included in the intervention. Institutional…