Grade inflation is causing student's hard work to be undervalued. As high grades get easier and easier to achieve, the highest grades can only go up so far. The difference between excellent and decent is compressed. Everybody wins is a system that guides and shapes the mindset of most American students--except a small number of kids who lose out…

We use student-level administrative data from Delaware for 43,767 high school students across five 12th grade cohorts from 2017 to 2021. We apply Item Response Theory (IRT) to high school transcript data, treating courses as items and grades as ordered responses, to estimate both student transcript strength ([theta]) and course difficulty. We…

The COVID-19 pandemic required adaptation to a new learning environment creating challenges for students and instructors. A reduction in student-teacher contact and the lack of supervision should have led to a decline in students' academic performance. Nonetheless, studies report increases in grades during the pandemic. Yet, limited information is…

For more than seventy-five years, standardized tests have been considered a vital tool for gauging students' readiness for college. However, few people--including students, parents, teachers, and policy makers--understand how tests like the SAT or ACT are used in admissions decisions. Once touted as the best way to compare students from diverse…

This study examined the relationship between students' self-reported high school grade point average (HSGPA) from the SAT Questionnaire and their HSGPA provided by the colleges and universities they attend. The purpose of this research was to offer updated information on the relatedness of self-reported (by the student) and school-reported (by the…

This study examined the change in term grade point average (GPA) from 1974 through 2004 for 368,282 undergraduate student records at a large, research-extensive university in the Southeast. Descriptive analyses showed an increase in term GPA and average SAT scores over the 31-year period. Although average SAT and GPA increased, standard deviations…

The issue of grade inflation is clarified by examining the database of the College Board's Validity Study Service. Also examined is the effect of grade inflation on the validity of the Scholastic Aptitude Test across a 15-year period. (Author/GK)

Evidence indicates that college grades have increased on the average and that the college-bound population has decreased in traditional kinds of academic skills, based on observed declines on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Test (ACT). But the relationship between these traditional skills and grades appears not to have…

According to 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress science results, there is no difference between private and public school performance by the time one reaches the 75th percentile of grade 12. Recent SAT scores for the top 20% of students indicate teachers are not inflating grades. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing…

This study was conducted to establish the existence of grade inflation and show that the ability of college students has remained constant. The second purpose was to examine the effect of grade inflation on the validity of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Two types of analyses were performed to gather data. A longitudinal analysis of selected…

The writer looks at the often contradictory ways in which tests are seen and used. We are told by its defenders that the SAT is a superb measure of academic promise, but its detractors insist that it is next to useless in helping colleges and universities select their entering class. Test-driven accountability systems have been criticized as…

This study was conducted to obtain empirical data to inform policy decisions about exempting incoming students from a first-year composition (FYC) course on the basis of Advanced Placement (AP) English exam scores. It examined the effect of avoiding first-year writing on the writing abilities of sophomore undergraduates. Two three-page writing…

The SAT I: Reasoning Test actually predicts how well females will do in college better than it predicts for males. Results from validity studies that have been conducted with hundreds of colleges and universities and examined by ETS and external researchers consistently confirm that the SAT correlation with both freshman GPA and individual course…

The validity of grades in higher education as a measure of what a student has actually learned has been a concern to both the public and academicians for over three decades. This was one of several issues discussed in a report by the National Institute of Education Study Group on Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education. Furthermore,…

There is clear evidence that the average grades earned in high school have been going up for some period of time. This study examines the question of whether students of varying backgrounds have experienced similar increases in grade point average (GPA) over a 25-plus-year period. Changes in SAT verbal and mathematical scores for the same gender…