after every test ... i update my gradebook and, with last 4 digits of student # ... put these on my door
in addition, i put the desc stats and, a simple frequency tally
i see nothing wrong with this AND, it is the only efficient way to communicate to the students about their scores and how the class did ... the operative here is that no one person knows what any other person does

of course, it is not uncommon for several students (maybe friends) to stop by the "door" at the same time ... and, they share with each other ... for good or for bad ... how they did

if you have a 50 item test ... and, the mean is say 38 ... and someone gets a 27 ... THEY know they did poorly and ... THEY usually don't feel that good about it but, i don't see how displaying on my door a simple frequency distribution adds to that feeling

since many instructors (i am not one of them) grade based on your position within the distribution ... then it seems reasonable to put a frequency distribution on display SOMEplace so students have a better idea of just exactly where they stand ... for good or for bad

finally, the more information you can show to the class about the performance on the test ... the better they are able to put all scores into some perspective ... i don't see why we should NOT do this

it is certainly not unethical ... it would be if full student identifiers were displayed but ... that is not the case

At 01:20 PM 1/18/03 -0500, Stan Brown wrote:
Arthur J. Kendall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in sci.stat.edu:
>Is it unethical to display a frequency count and percentages of the
>grades for a course (without any names or identifiability) since someone
>might feel badly about where they stand in the class?

I'm not sure why you label his a "troll". It seems like a legitimate
question to me.

After most quizzes, I show the class the median and mean. I have
sometimes thought about displaying the further information mentioned
above, but have desisted exactly because I'm concerned about hurt
feelings.

I'd like to hear some comments from others on this.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
                                  http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"You find yourself amusing, Blackadder."
"I try not to fly in the face of public opinion."
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