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…

Grade inflation is harmful to students as well as faculty. Faculty should not have to fear that honest grading may result in job loss. Students who truly deserve A grades also are negatively impacted when they receive the same grade as students who submit good but not superior work. At the very least, it is a disincentive for students to work to…

Relatively inexpensive studies that go beyond the boundaries of individual institutions have considerable attraction, particularly at a time when resources are under significant constraint. These studies can be viewed as existing under the rather larger umbrella of "supra-institutional research". Three examples illustrate the argument…

Several studies show that teachers make use of grading practices to affect students' effort and achievement. Generally linearity is assumed in the grading equation, while it is everyone's experience that grading practices are frequently non-linear. Representing grading practices as linear can be misleading both from a descriptive and a…

The practice of handing out excellent grades to students who don't deserve them (grade inflation) is not a new phenomenon. Indeed grade inflation is among the oldest and most difficult issues to address in higher education. The author first studied the impact of grade inflation on student performance on standardized tests at the high school level…

The report card grade has come to serve a variety of purposes: (1) Substantiation for state funding; (2) A public relations opportunity to help generate positive feelings between a school and the community; (3) A vehicle used by the teacher to increase a student's self-esteem; (4) An opportunity to reward a student's likability; and (5) A chance…

Grade inflation at Wichita State University between 1965-1976 was investigated. Differential inflation patterns occurred in undergraduate and graduate levels. Possible contributing factors are: the increased use of criterion-referenced grading; the use of student evaluation in faculty salary, tenure, and promotion decisions, and expansion of…

It is hypothesized that the average level of undergraduate grades has been increasing due to a change in grading practices rather than other fundamental factors. Printed sources were searched for the various reasons that have been cited and possible solutions are offered. (LBH)

This paper presents a new method to test for grade inflation. Defining grade inflation as the decreasing value of grades in the coin of student achievement, the study avoids the assumption that a rise in mean grade is a necessary condition of grade inflation. The study, which was conducted at a single university, also sought to determine whether…

Higher education, it is suggested, has lost much public confidence because of the problem of overinflated grading standards. Relative performance standings of all students in a course could correct the inconsistencies. "Extra academic record" evaluations are seen as expensive, draining faculty time and university resources. (Author/MLW)

Ten departments with high grade inflation rates during a seven-year period were compared with 10 departments within the same university displaying lower grade inflation rates. Higher grade inflation rates were related to perceived increases in the demands placed upon the academicians' role. (Author/MLW)

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,…

Professors at a large, northwest, state-supported university selected communication between instructor and student as the most important function of grades. Second in importance was the predictive function of grades, i.e., providing the student and others with information for making educational and vocational decisions. Third in importance was the…

The grading system at the University of North Carolina at Asheville before fall 1978 provided four designations: H (honors); G (good or well above average); P (pass or satisfactory); and F (failure). This range does not provide a grade for unsatisfactory but passing work. It was suspected that this led teachers to give "average" grades…

The purpose of this article is to deal with the following issues as they relate to educational grading policy: (1) to examine the use and misuse of grades in education; (2) to explore the use of performance based grading versus traditional grading and compare institutions using traditional grading versus those using performance based or…