Access to pass/fail grading was liberalized for courses designed to be delivered in-person but moved online due to social distancing caused by the COVID-19 pandemic at many universities in the spring 2020 semester. There was little research to inform liberalizing access to pass/fail grading as a tool to support student performance and persistence…

The pandemic has been an unprecedented disruption to the lives of college students and the operation of higher education institutions. Students' performance during the pandemic was likely influenced by the hardship they personally experienced, how easily they adapted to remote teaching (including technology access), and their professors' ability…

Online education continues to become an increasingly prominent part of higher education, but many students struggle in distance courses. For this reason, there has been considerable interest in predicting which students will succeed in online courses and which will receive poor grades or drop out prior to completion. Effective intervention depends…

Institutions of higher education commonly employ a conjunctive standard setting strategy, which requires students to resit failed examinations until they pass all tests. An alternative strategy allows students to compensate a failing grade with other test results. This paper uses regression discontinuity design to compare the effect of first-year…

When the safety of the public is at stake, it is particularly relevant for licensing and credentialing exam agencies to use defensible standard setting methods to categorize candidates into competence categories (e.g., pass/fail). The aim of this study was to gather evidence to support change to the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing-USA…

This guide is designed to help adult educators and administrators better understand the content of the GED® test. This guide is tailored to each test subject and highlights the test's item types, assessment targets, and guidelines for how items will be scored. This 2016 edition has been updated to include the most recent information about the…

The inclusion of college preparation programs promote and forecast academic success in postsecondary studies among individual at-risk, African American urban high school students. Past research has shown ongoing, college acceptance, performance, and graduation gaps between at-risk, African American urban high school students when compared to…

Traditionally, medical schools have tended to make assumptions that students will "automatically" engage in self-education effectively after graduation and subsequent training in residency and fellowships. In reality, the majority of medical graduates out in practice feel unprepared for learning on their own. Many medical schools are now adopting…

First year students' academic performance in three Life Science courses (Botany, Zoology and Bioscience) was compared. Pass rates, as well as the means and distributions of final marks were analysed. Of the three components (coursework, practical and theory examinations) contributing to the final mark of each course, students performed best in the…

This retrospective study was conducted to examine the relationship between selected variables and performance on the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN). Data were collected from one hundred twenty graduates of a baccalaureate program; graduates completed either the traditional four-year track or an accelerated…

The study indicated that student teaching is an anxiety-producing experience but little difference exists between students taking it by pass/fail and those taking it by grade. Both tended to experience loss of sleep and appetite changes and higher anxiety levels when confronted with situations involving the university coordinator. (NQA)

A comparison of student performance resulting from the transition from a pass/no credit to the traditional letter grade system indicated that the former system was not superior to the latter system. Academic performance was better in the graded system; academic standards were raised, particularly at the masters' level. (Author/GK)

Results suggest that different groups of judges do set similar examination standards when using the same procedure, and that the average of individual judgments does not differ significantly from group consensus judgments. Significant differences were found, however, between the standards set by the two procedures employed. (RC)

Two procedures for classifying examinees into categories, one based on the sequential probability ratio test (SPRT) and the other on sequential Bayes methodology, were compared to determine which required fewer items for classification. Results showed that the SPRT procedure requires fewer items to achieve the same accuracy level. (SLD)

Compared semester grade point averages (GPAs) among students taking courses at an American university in Europe, where about half of students are degree-seeking, and the other half are study abroad students. Found that students taking the classes for a grade rather than as pass/fail have higher semester GPAs. This suggests that study abroad…