Re: adjusting marks; W. Edwards Deming
Robert Knodt writes in response to themessage at http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network (SEE BELOW) --- Re: adjusting marks; W. Edwards Deming It would be nice if those sending to the mailing list would clearly identify themselves. It would also be nice if they used an e-mail address so individuals might send them e-mail directly. Thanks, Dr. Robert C. Knodt 4949 Samish Way, #31 Bellingham, WA 98226 [EMAIL PROTECTED] End of Robert Knodt's message Beginning of Joe Ward's comment -- Good comment, Robert -- Perhaps the unidentified writer is afrustrated product of "Non-mastery" Spelling Education and is intentionally (or unintentionally) showing the results. See BOLD items below. -- Joe * Joe Ward Health Careers High School ** 167 East Arrowhead Dr 4646 Hamilton Wolfe ** San Antonio, TX 78228-2402 San Antonio, TX 78229 ** Phone: 210-433-6575 Phone: 210-617-5400 ** Fax: 210-433-2828 Fax: 210-617-5423 ** [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** http://www.ijoa.org/joeward/wardindex.html * - End of Joe Ward's comment -- - Original Message - From: Consultantssuck [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, February 07, 2000 5:12 PM Subject: Re: adjusting marks; W. Edwards Deming | Dr. Deming Naive? You, sir, are misguided and unfortunately,| misinformed of the genius of the master Dr. Shewhart, and his| disiple and messenger to the latter half of the 20th century,| Dr. Deming.| | Humans want to do a good job. Dr. Deming was pellucid on this| point. People and school fit nicely into this axiom.| | what you fail to understand is the profound knowledge of| thinking preparing, and continual improvement. Grading is nice,| succinct, and above all, usually useless in its existing| design. Does grading permit our student to readdress problem or| slow areas? In many cases grading only shows how well you did,| based on varying factors-The next test, completely different.| | we have all seen studies where the pretty girl is awarded better| grades for the same caliber of work as others. we have all| seen reports where teachers are wrong in their suppositions,| then corrected or challenged by students, ultimately leading| these educators to hold a grudge for "attitude and behavior"| when report card time recurs.| | Do you want to know why the AFT and the NEA are against teaching| LOGIC in elementary schools (Logic being the foundation for all| higher math applications)?| | Could it be because some protege will learn to ask the harder| questions? Possibly Some "smart alec" will not accept our| educator's "Because I told you it did."| | A recent report found Elementary educators, when pressed for| answers they did not know, simply "winged it." This sophristry| unfortunately happens when our educators are not versed in the| sciences, history or math, and they wish to appear (to| themselves and) to their students, smart.| | People want to do a good job. Grading allows teachers to make| decisions in our children's early years based on mostly the| faliable educator's emotions toward that one particular budding| mind. Grading should be benchmarks for ever improvement based| on practice, practice practice of the fundementals. Then of| course moving foward with a keen sence of where the student is| going. Any good music teacher will tell you the ones who| practice the fundemental scales, dilegently, go on to master the| difficult pieces.| | Read the book OUT OF CRISES again, and again. I assure you, you| will soon "get it."| | | | * Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *| The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!| | | | ===| This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, people lacking respect| for other members of the list send messages that are inappropriate| or unrelated to the list's discussion topics. Please just delete the| offensive email.| | For information concerning the list, please see the following web page:| http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/| ===|
Re: Adjusting marks
Muriel Strand wrote (prompted by a semiliterate and pseudonymous troll) i question whether this jerk has assimilated Deming's basic message about respect for others. i was unable to find a reference for this book OUT OF CRISES. I presume the poster meant "Out of the Crisis" (W.E. Deming, 1986). Makes one wonder if [s]he has actually read it at all, let alone "again and again". -Robert Dawson === This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, people lacking respect for other members of the list send messages that are inappropriate or unrelated to the list's discussion topics. Please just delete the offensive email. For information concerning the list, please see the following web page: http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ ===
Re: adjusting marks; W. Edwards Deming
On Wed, 9 Feb 2000, Joe Ward wrote, in response to Robert Knodt's reply to ecwebster: Good comment, Robert -- Perhaps the unidentified writer is a frustrated product of "Non-mastery" Spelling Education and is intentionally (or unintentionally) showing the results. See BOLD items below. -- Joe Nice job of editing for spelling, Joe. I'm not sure whether webster will notice -- or appreciate -- it. [I notice you didn't bother trying to emend syntactical and grammatical infelicities!] Webster has not responded to my private message (copied to Robert Knodt) taking him to task for his public posting of an essentially private scolding, and taking issue with his misrepresentation of music teachers and of music as a performance art. Don't know as I should expect a response... -- Don. Donald F. Burrill [EMAIL PROTECTED] 348 Hyde Hall, Plymouth State College, [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSC #29, Plymouth, NH 03264 603-535-2597 184 Nashua Road, Bedford, NH 03110 603-471-7128 === This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, people lacking respect for other members of the list send messages that are inappropriate or unrelated to the list's discussion topics. Please just delete the offensive email. For information concerning the list, please see the following web page: http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ ===
Re: adjusting marks; W. Edwards Deming
Dr. Deming Naive? You, sir, are misguided and unfortunately, misinformed of the genius of the master Dr. Shewhart, and his disiple and messenger to the latter half of the 20th century, Dr. Deming. Humans want to do a good job. Dr. Deming was pellucid on this point. People and school fit nicely into this axiom. what you fail to understand is the profound knowledge of thinking preparing, and continual improvement. Grading is nice, succinct, and above all, usually useless in its existing design. Does grading permit our student to readdress problem or slow areas? In many cases grading only shows how well you did, based on varying factors-The next test, completely different. we have all seen studies where the pretty girl is awarded better grades for the same caliber of work as others. we have all seen reports where teachers are wrong in their suppositions, then corrected or challenged by students, ultimately leading these educators to hold a grudge for "attitude and behavior" when report card time recurs. Do you want to know why the AFT and the NEA are against teaching LOGIC in elementary schools (Logic being the foundation for all higher math applications)? Could it be because some protege will learn to ask the harder questions? Possibly Some "smart alec" will not accept our educator's "Because I told you it did." A recent report found Elementary educators, when pressed for answers they did not know, simply "winged it." This sophristry unfortunately happens when our educators are not versed in the sciences, history or math, and they wish to appear (to themselves and) to their students, smart. People want to do a good job. Grading allows teachers to make decisions in our children's early years based on mostly the faliable educator's emotions toward that one particular budding mind. Grading should be benchmarks for ever improvement based on practice, practice practice of the fundementals. Then of course moving foward with a keen sence of where the student is going. Any good music teacher will tell you the ones who practice the fundemental scales, dilegently, go on to master the difficult pieces. Read the book OUT OF CRISES again, and again. I assure you, you will soon "get it." * Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network * The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free! === This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, people lacking respect for other members of the list send messages that are inappropriate or unrelated to the list's discussion topics. Please just delete the offensive email. For information concerning the list, please see the following web page: http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ ===
Re: adjusting marks; W. Edwards Deming
It would be nice if those sending to the mailing list would clearly identify themselves. It would also be nice if they used an e-mail address so individuals might send them e-mail directly. Thanks, Dr. Robert C. Knodt 4949 Samish Way, #31 Bellingham, WA 98226 [EMAIL PROTECTED] === This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, people lacking respect for other members of the list send messages that are inappropriate or unrelated to the list's discussion topics. Please just delete the offensive email. For information concerning the list, please see the following web page: http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ ===
Re: adjusting marks - to compute or not?
based on recent negative experiences in econometrics, i would say that the absolutely essential thing, whether computers are used or not, is for the professor to provide *detailed* problem solutions for a representative and ample variety of problems. the motivated student then had plenty of material to use in tracking down incorrect ideas. (the solutions in the problem solution book are almost always too summarized.) maniacal attention to this sort of detail was essential to (my) success in engineering, and the econometrics (and economics) professors who failed to provide it lost my intellectual respect. Bob Hayden wrote: H. In my department we are responding to a reviewer who urged greater uniformity among sections of the same course. I sort of agree, but this has raised questions as to what should be the same and what is allowed to vary. Right now we have some sections of Stats.I where weekly Minitab assignments are collected and graded and others where computers are not used at all. I don't think that is good. On the other hand, I don't think we all need to use the same text, as long as we all use respectable ones -- say, ones on the approved list for AP Stats. While this is debatable, my outlook re education is highly colored by my undergraduate experience at MIT. There it was common for the professor to give his (no women in those days) own idea of what was important in his field. These views were often highly idiosyncratic and absolutely brilliant. I had courses containing stuff that was not contained in any published textbook. I loved it and learned a lot. Enforcing uniformity would have turned MIT into just another college. Now, what do you think about the variation in Beethoven's symphonies? Obviously this guy did not have a very good QC system. There is a lot more uniformity in performance these days -- I hear little differences compared to the differences among Toscanini, Walter, Furtwangler, Mengelberg, etc. Is this really an improvment? Likewise cars are all much more alike than they were when we have inline 6s and 8s, v-8s, v-12s, OHV engines, flatheads, etc. Maybe it's for the better but I miss my Buick straight eight. What about spouses? Should they all be the same? _ | | Robert W. Hayden | | Department of Mathematics / | Plymouth State College MSC#29 | | Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264 USA | * | Rural Route 1, Box 10 /| Ashland, NH 03217-9702 | ) (603) 968-9914 (home) L_/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] fax (603) 535-2943 (work) -- Any resemblance of any of the above opinions to anybody's official position is completely coincidental. Muriel Strand, P.E. Air Resources Engineer CA Air Resources Board 2020 L Street Sacramento, CA 59814 916-324-9661 916-327-8524 (fax) www.arb.ca.gov
Re: adjusting marks
When my students asked me (as a class) to grade on a curve, I suggested the following alternative. "Place N chips in a can. Let them marked in the following way: 10%F, 20%D, 40%C, 20%B, 10%A. Let each student pick a chip and leave the class, certain of his/her grade." For some reason, nobody ever wanted to do that! :-) Generic wrote: My wife wants to adjust marks for a course she is marking. Does someone have a formula or something for using a bell curve to move them up or down? I have done this sort of thing about 15 years ago, but I can't remember any of it! --
Re: adjusting marks
Richard A. Beldin, Ph.D. ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: : When my students asked me (as a class) to grade on a curve, I suggested the : following alternative. : "Place N chips in a can. Let them marked in the following way: 10%F, 20%D, 40%C, : 20%B, 10%A. Let each student pick a chip and leave the class, certain of his/her : grade." : For some reason, nobody ever wanted to do that! :-) Thank you! The whole problem with norm-referenced, as opposed to criterion-referenced, grading or performance assessment is that it assumes that you can know how many people did a good job, mediocre job, bad job, etc. *before* any of them have done the job! This is not to say that all forms of norm-referenced measurement are inherently bad, but they're generally only useful for *diagnostic* purposes. Knowing that a student is way behind his peers may give you information on whether he has some problems that need to be dealt with. But using norm-referenced measurements inappropriately leads to creating "designated losers." The best possible position for an individual in a norm-referenced assessment scheme is to be an achiever among a bunch of slackers; it's a better position than being an achiever among a bunch of other achievers.
Re: adjusting marks
I also want to add a bit about my predjudices. In my seventeen years in industry, I rarely heard of anyone getting praise for "trying". The emphasis was on "results", even at the cost of some formal policies. However, in the twelve years I spent in academia, both before and after my industrial work, I have heard of getting rewarded for "effort". Somehow, I think there is a correlation. Teachers don't get rewarded for results, but for effort. Maybe that's why we consider rewarding students in the same way. Educational institutions have not come to grips with measuring the effectiveness of teachers. It's about time we did!
Adjusting marks (Evaluating effectiveness of teachers)
Richard, You posting should results in a number of opions regarding the evaluation of teachers. I spend 30+ years in education as well as working in industry for 30 years. Much of my educational time was spend while working in industry and teaching at a local university. I have had many discussions with regard to 'evaluation of teachers.' As a classroom teacher, department chairman and principal of a senior high school I was continually faced with this problem. I had to evaluate teachers in all subject areas but for continued emplyment and for permanent tenure. It ain't easy. I was with a major corportation for many years and as a plant manager I had to evaluate, promote, give raises, suggest for bonus, and terminate many workers from the entry level to middle management. It is easier than evaluating teachers. I'm very interested to see what your post will stir up. Recently there was quite a discussion of student evaluation of teachers. Enjoy the Holiday Season Dr. Robert C. Knodt 4949 Samish Way, #31 Bellingham, WA 98226 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: adjusting marks; W. Edwards Deming
Hi On Wed, 22 Dec 1999, Peter Westfall wrote: Jim Clark wrote: Artificially giving all students (or almost all) the same grade does not minimize variation in the underlying trait, achievement, in this case. It simply hides the variation so that one does not know to what extent one is minimizing differences in achievement, and rewards students for not trying to achieve more than some minimal level. I don't Deming would have said assignment of Pass/Fail should be "artificial". If the student doesn't perform, then of course they shouldn't Pass. He did say, on the other hand, that grading imposes an artificial scarcity of A's (also of C's and D's). These are again Deming's words, and echo Dennis Robert's comments about the pure subjectivity of the grading process. Artificial scarcity is _not_ a necessary feature of grading (see below) and a relatively small number of high grades does _not_ necessarily indicate anything about the subjectivity of grading. Students (or employees or whatever) vary on characteristics that affect their performance in class (or on the job), such as ability and motivation. To treat all human beings as some homogenous group indicates to me a serious misunderstanding of human beings. We should certainly do everything we can to maximize performance of everyone, but there are limits to what can be achieved. The motivation for the students should be in Joy of Learning (one of Deming's 14 points) rather than the grade. This I agree with wholeheartedly. How can we achieve this? I think it is our main challenge as educators. Using the grading system as a motivational substitute for Joy of Learning is lazy, inefficient management of our classes. You do not promote joy of learning by creating a system in which people who work hard find that people who do less or poorer work achieve the same benefits (i.e., grades, salary). That strikes me as a good way to disillusion everyone. You can certainly downplay the consequences side and emphasize to students that they should focus on understanding and learning the material, that evaluations are primarily to provide feedback on how well things are going, and the like. Mostly, you need to design the educational system to maximize learning and achievement by as many students as possible (e.g., well organized instruction, constructive evaluation, enhancing interest in the material, teaching study or other prerequisite skills, and so on). Students who are fairly sure they are not going to get the coveted A, or who only need a "C or better" are going to give less effort. This will increase variation, and operates contrary to the stated goal of the system. In fact research shows that low aptitude students tend to study _more_ than high aptitude students, which results in a moderation of the relationship between aptitude and grades (i.e., reducing variation). One hypothesis is that students study as much as necessary to achieve some level of perceived understanding/learning, and the amount of study needed differs across students. Grading is not equivalent to ranking, unless one uses a forced distribution. One can grade without any restriction on the number of As or other grades other than the achievement of the students. I would be interested in hearing about any empirical evidence that non-use of grading schemes produces better or even as good learning as the use of grades? I think this is a very important point: what can we do in place of ranking? Now, as much as you say you don't use ranking, I am not sure you can get away without out. What if all of a sudden everyone got A's by your criteria? Wouldn't the administration get on your case? Then, you might say, just make the criteria harder so that we get back to a "normal" proportion of As, Bs etc. Well, aren't you just back to ranking? In my experience, the odds of everyone getting As by any sensible criteria are quite slim. By sensible, I mean not so excessively low that everyone passes some real minimal standard (e.g., as for driving a car, to use an example from another posting). In fact I teach an honours methods and statistics class that routinely has half the class receive As. The class has select students to begin with and is designed so that hard work is pretty much ensured. Even though grades at our institution are formally reviewed by a committee, I have never had a problem. As for changing criteria, that is a complex issue. I teach my students now far more than what I learned in the comparable class 30 years ago. Such evolution does occur, but it is not artificial. For example, graduates today are expected to have greater computer expertise. I don't have any data from the classroom experience, but I do have an observation from business. Texas Instruments had a policy of ranking plants in terms of their performance. The employees at the top plants received bonuses. Great idea, right? Motivates
Adjusting marks
Splendid. The pot has been stirred. Some very good responses to my stone. I stand corrected. DAH
Re: adjusting marks; W. Edwards Deming
Jim Clark wrote: Artificially giving all students (or almost all) the same grade does not minimize variation in the underlying trait, achievement, in this case. It simply hides the variation so that one does not know to what extent one is minimizing differences in achievement, and rewards students for not trying to achieve more than some minimal level. I don't Deming would have said assignment of Pass/Fail should be "artificial". If the student doesn't perform, then of course they shouldn't Pass. He did say, on the other hand, that grading imposes an artificial scarcity of A's (also of C's and D's). These are again Deming's words, and echo Dennis Robert's comments about the pure subjectivity of the grading process. The motivation for the students should be in Joy of Learning (one of Deming's 14 points) rather than the grade. This I agree with wholeheartedly. How can we achieve this? I think it is our main challenge as educators. Using the grading system as a motivational substitute for Joy of Learning is lazy, inefficient management of our classes. Students who are fairly sure they are not going to get the coveted A, or who only need a "C or better" are going to give less effort. This will increase variation, and operates contrary to the stated goal of the system. My question is again: Is ranking really necessary? Given the goal of reducing variation, what does it help? Students in competition for the scarce A's will withhold information from one another. Does this achieve the stated aim of the system in an optimal way? W. Edwards Deming would have said, most emphatically, no. He spoke quite often of the educational system particularly in his later years; his message was not at all meant to be limited to manufacturing. Grading is not equivalent to ranking, unless one uses a forced distribution. One can grade without any restriction on the number of As or other grades other than the achievement of the students. I would be interested in hearing about any empirical evidence that non-use of grading schemes produces better or even as good learning as the use of grades? I think this is a very important point: what can we do in place of ranking? Now, as much as you say you don't use ranking, I am not sure you can get away without out. What if all of a sudden everyone got A's by your criteria? Wouldn't the administration get on your case? Then, you might say, just make the criteria harder so that we get back to a "normal" proportion of As, Bs etc. Well, aren't you just back to ranking? I don't have any data from the classroom experience, but I do have an observation from business. Texas Instruments had a policy of ranking plants in terms of their performance. The employees at the top plants received bonuses. Great idea, right? Motivates people, makes them perform to the best of their abilities, just like grading. The problem is, the innovations were hoarded by the individual plants to secure the bonuses, to the detriment of the company at large. Optimization of individual processes can be detrimental to the system, if the system at large is not considered in the optimization process. Thanks for the continuing discussion. I have been profoundly influenced by the words of W. Edwards Deming, and hope others will take a look at what he had to say, at least to stimulate discussions such as this. As he himself said, you don't simply "implement" his system, much like you don't learn to play piano by buying one and placing it in your living room. In the same way, you don't simply implement Deming's method as it applies to teaching by implementing P/F and be done with it. I would like to know, are there any others out there who have been influenced by Deming? Has his message lost its force in our current climate of economic prosperity? Peter Westfall
Re: adjusting marks
"David A. Heiser" wrote: - Original Message - From: Peter Westfall [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 1999 6:45 PM Subject: Re: adjusting marks Bob Hayden wrote: - Forwarded message from Peter Westfall - Deming himself (if I remember correctly) graded everyone as "A" until the administration noticed, and then they made his courses Pass-Fail. Deming was also very much against ranking students in any way, except for the possible exception of identifying an exceptional student that others might emulate (the 3*sigma student) and identifying the exceptionally poor student ( 3*sigma) for remediation. All other students should be be essentially equivalent, in Deming's philosophy. - End of forwarded message from Peter Westfall - Would you recommend this for drivers' license tests? Oh, I get it, that's what we're doing already! No wonder. I have to admit, it would sure simplify quality control if we considered anything within +- 3 s.d. to be OK. Then I guess the motivation would be to throw in a few clunkers now and then to keep the s.d. as large as possible? Bob, Your remarks sound facetious. I was hoping to stimulate some serious discussion. Have you read anything by Deming? Here is Deming's philosophy, as well as I can paraphrase it for the present situation: Students/teachers/administrators form a system. The system has an aim, which is (presumably) to educate everyone as well as possible, for the good of the students, and for the good of society. What good does ranking do? Does it help to achieve the aim of the system? Or rather, is it simply a weeding process? Is ranking necessary? (these are mainly Deming's words, but I must admit I see lots of value there.) Regarding making the standard deviation large, Deming would say that management's (professors, administrators) job entails minimizing variation among students. This can be done in the usual ways - admissions procedures, advising, prerequisites. Individual classes are "processes" within the larger system, and in the process of continual improvement, one seeks ways to minimize variation within the processes. Deming shows a diagram where the knowledge of people before training is scattered and highly variable, and after training the mean level is higher but the variation smaller. The inference is that the more effective the classroom experience, the less variation in the final levels of knowledge and abilities of the students, as they pertain to the subject at hand. My question is again: Is ranking really necessary? Given the goal of reducing variation, what does it help? Students in competition for the scarce A's will withhold information from one another. Does this achieve the stated aim of the system in an optimal way? W. Edwards Deming would have said, most emphatically, no. He spoke quite often of the educational system particularly in his later years; his message was not at all meant to be limited to manufacturing. Peter --- Very Intersting I don't agree with Demming. Life is essentially a matter of diversity, and being able to find one's own "niche". The process of ranking is inherent in life whenever there is stress on a population. Going to college is indeed "stress". If in order to suceed, I need to obtain a PhD from Stanford, then I have to get high grades and attain other acheivments to get in that few percent that gets accepted. If my college grades are all "pass", how am I going to compete with the applicate with A+++ grades from NCU? How are new hires for the expensive New York/Washington law firms hired? Not on pass/fail but on which law school and how the professors rated the student and what were the extra curricular activities? Much of this is subjective, but when you have 300 applicants for one job, you have to do some ranking to pick the top 3 or 5. Demming I think has the quality control mindset of pass/fail in terms of manufactured objects, where everything is acceptable between -3 and +3 sigma (Now it is -6 to +6 sigma.) This may be fine for shop work on the floor. In (I think Deming had some serious problems with 6 sigma QC, but that is besides the point.) this country the only thing we manufacture now is credit and money to buy manufactured goods from other countries. You need a very diverse population now. The process of ranking as flawed as it is, works, because there are so many areas where one can find his own niche, and ranking is one way of finding one's niche. DAH No doubt about it, we can't make everyone the same, nor do we want to. We can, however, make their levels of understanding and logical thought processes similar through proper educati
Re: adjusting marks; W. Edwards Deming
this shows how naive deming really was ... who says learning "should" be a joy? learning is WORK ... and, work is hard. now, some kids really relish the task and challenges ... but many others do not ... should we blame THEM? but, i don't really see what deming has to do with our discussion of "adjusting" marks ... At 08:33 AM 12/22/99 -0600, Peter Westfall wrote about deming: The motivation for the students should be in Joy of Learning (one of Deming's 14 points) rather than the grade. -- 208 Cedar Bldg., University Park, PA 16802 AC 814-863-2401Email mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm FAX: AC 814-863-1002
Re: adjusting marks
Michael Granaas ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: : While more careful admissions processes would certainly limit the : variability in students, and therefor grading, how is it any different : from grading? If you are going to be more careful with admissions you : need a ranking system of some sort to determine who will succeed and who : will fail. This is just puts the Social Darwinism issue at a different : stage of the process. There's a fundamental difference between admissions decisions and grading decisions: the former involve allocating an inherently scarce resource. There's a limit to the total number of students a school or program can admit, regardless of how certain qualities are distributed among the applicants. However imperfect the available criteria for selecting a subset of applicants are, you're going to *have* to use *some* criteria. All you can do is try to make them as "fair" as possible. There's a genuine cost associated with admitting another applicant. But evaluating performances within a class doesn't involve any inherently scarce resource. There's no particular cost that increases with the grade a student gets.
Re: adjusting marks
Not all grading practices "on a curve" are performed as described by Eric Bohlman. OK maybe I am clueless about all of this but I often saw grading on a curve being implemented when lots of students performed poorly on a test. Thus test scores were adjusted (usually in the upward direction) to make up for the poor performance that might be attributed to poor teaching, poor test construction, bad items or whatever. I never, as a teacher, used any curving procedure to lower students grades! But obviously the students scores for those performing poorest on the test had the highest increases when the curve was applied whereas those performing well saw little if any increase in their scores. Perhaps that is the unfairness you and others are referring to. Or are you referring to the decision to rescale test scores so they fit a more normal distribution? In which case, I agree that there are problems with that approach and see no reason for why anyone should assume that test scores should conform to a normal distribution or force them to do so. In fact, most teacher-made tests (and here I really want to say all) are criterion-referenced tests so why can't all students meet the criterion? There is no reason at all for why that cannot not be done except that some might think that one instructor grades more leniently than another and at the university level students will sign up in droves for the class taught by the instructor ho is the easier grader. So am I off my rocker or what? (After developing tests as a teacher, I now develop tests for states and local school districts so if I am missing a big point here, please let me know. I would hate to think I was causing harm to students.) Deanna === Deanna M. De'Liberto, President/Director of Assessment D Squared Assessments, Inc. (Specialists in Test Development/Validation and Test Administration) 9 Bedle Road, Suite 250 Hazlet, NJ 07730-1209 Phone: (732) 888-9339 Email:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.quikpage.com/D/dsquared Member of the Association of Test Publishers === Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail transmission may contain confidential or legally privileged information that is intended only for the individual or entity named in the e-mail address. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or reliance upon the contents of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail transmission in error, please reply to the sender, so that DSA can arrange for proper delivery, and then please delete the message from your inbox. Thank you. In a message dated 12/22/1999 2:16:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: EAKIN MARK E ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: : While I do not grade on a curve, I feel that if reasons exist,it is more : valid to adjust atypical grades distributions than not to adjust them. : My reason for not grading on a curve is more for class harmony. Grading on : a curve often means taking points away from some students while adding to : others. I noticed that a class can suddenly become hostile if some : students are treated better than others. This hostile environment can be : detrimental to a class's performance also. To put it even more bluntly, grading "on a curve" really means establishing a budget of grade points and then distributing that budget among the students, which means that the grade a particular student gets depends not only on the distribution decisions but on the size of the budget. Where on earth does this concept of a budget come from? It implies at least two questionable, to say the least, underlying assumptions: 1) That the "total" of whatever it is that grades are supposed to measure is a constant depending only on class size. 2) That it's possible to evaluate the collective performance of a group on a task *before* they've performed that task. The purpose of a budget is to make it possible to allocate limited resources. Since when is academic performance a limited resource, or even any sort of resource subject to allocation? What on earth does it mean to say to a student "your performance would be an A, but that would put me over budget so I can only give you a B" or "your performance would be a D, but I've got some extra grade points left over so I can give you a C"? The disharmony you talk about is really the result of pitting students against each other in such a way that each student's success depends on other students' failure. Why would someone want to do this? If we're not talking about allocating an inherently scarce resource, the only reason I can think of is a deliberate desire to create disharmony in order to use "divide and conquer" to prevent collective action. If
Re: adjusting marks
first, why does she want to do this? second, does the distribution as is, look like a normal distribution? if not ... why would you want to FORCE it to look like that? third ... usually, "curving" means lowering the cutoffs ... that were established at the beginning of a course (maybe in the syllabus) if that is the case ... then there is NO statistical rationale for this ... simply, your "gut" feeling that not enough students are making As, Bs, etc ... SO, you move the cutoffs down until YOU feel comfortable ... At 04:23 AM 12/21/99 +, Generic wrote: My wife wants to adjust marks for a course she is marking. Does someone have a formula or something for using a bell curve to move them up or down? I have done this sort of thing about 15 years ago, but I can't remember any of it! -- -- 208 Cedar Bldg., University Park, PA 16802 AC 814-863-2401Email mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm FAX: AC 814-863-1002
Re: adjusting marks
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My wife wants to adjust marks for a course she is marking. Does someone have a formula or something for using a bell curve to move them up or down? I have done this sort of thing about 15 years ago, but I can't remember any of it! Use a calculator to find the average and the standard deviation of the grades that she has. Then have her decide what grade she wants to be the average of her adjusted class grades. She also needs to decide what standard deviation she wants for her new grades. (I often use 80 as the new average and 7 as the standard deviation.) Now, here is how to figure the new grades: new grade =[(old grade - old average)/old standard deviation]* new standard deviation + new average. For my scale, indicated above, the formula becomes y = (x - avg)* 7 + 80 Hope this helps. RGD -- Robert G. Davies Woodberry Forest School Woodberry Forest, VA 22989 (540) 672-3900
Re: adjusting marks
I assume she intends to move all marks up or down in tandem. I assume too that the marks themselves are quantitative along some sort of continuum. Regardless, the easiest thing would be to rank order them and make a decision where the cutoff lines for A's, B's, etc.make sense. I don't see this as a statistical problem per se. You could graph the scores with a scatterplot or histogram to determine the shape of the distribution. She could visually inspect the plot and see if the distribution is bell-shaped, uniform, skewed, etc. If the data so indicate, one could do Z scores and find out the distance from the mean, percentile rank, etc., but IMHO this problem can be better solved by intuition, viz., looking at the data, drawing rational cutoff lines and at the same time being fair to the students. In article jhD74.6313$[EMAIL PROTECTED], "Generic" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My wife wants to adjust marks for a course she is marking. Does someone have a formula or something for using a bell curve to move them up or down? I have done this sort of thing about 15 years ago, but I can't remember any of it!
Re: adjusting marks
Dennis Roberts writes: third ... usually, "curving" means lowering the cutoffs ... that were established at the beginning of a course (maybe in the syllabus) if that is the case ... then there is NO statistical rationale for this ... simply, your "gut" feeling that not enough students are making As, Bs, etc ... SO, you move the cutoffs down until YOU feel comfortable ... In the case of my teaching philosoply, I will have to disagree with the above. To me, a student's grade can be expressed as grade = function(acquired information, other variables) + error where acquired information (information gained in this class or others) can be expressed at any level of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives (i.e., from simple recall of information all the way to evaluation), other variables include differences in tests from one semester to the next, differences in presentation, etc. and the error term might just as well be incorporated into the set of "other variables". I believe that the marginal function of grades and information is positively monotonic but not necessarily first-order (does a student who made an 80 contain twice as much information as a student who make a 40?) Therefore I often check my grade distribution to see if it matches my expectations. I feel that classes containing more than 60 students should contain a typical mix of good and bad students. So if my grade distribution suddenly drops in one semester, I will try to determine the reason and add points if I feel that the difference is a result of variables other than changes in students' information. For small classes this is much more complicated. Luckily, it is easier to get to know more about each student in a small class and from that knowledge I have a better feel for what is causing the grade distribution to be higher or lower than my expectations. While I do not grade on a curve, I feel that if reasons exist,it is more valid to adjust atypical grades distributions than not to adjust them. My reason for not grading on a curve is more for class harmony. Grading on a curve often means taking points away from some students while adding to others. I noticed that a class can suddenly become hostile if some students are treated better than others. This hostile environment can be detrimental to a class's performance also.
Re: adjusting marks
At 02:34 PM 12/21/99 -0600, EAKIN MARK E wrote: Dennis Roberts writes: i said this ... third ... usually, "curving" means lowering the cutoffs ... that were established at the beginning of a course (maybe in the syllabus) if that is the case ... then there is NO statistical rationale for this ... simply, your "gut" feeling that not enough students are making As, Bs, etc ... SO, you move the cutoffs down until YOU feel comfortable ... and mark countered In the case of my teaching philosoply, I will have to disagree with the above. To me, a student's grade can be expressed as but, i counter counter with ... sorry ... grading is PRIMARILY a subjective activity ... there is no other way to put it. now, you can have test scores, project scores, other observations, speeches, homework, knowledge from previous classes, etc. ... you name it. but, in the final analysis ... you put all this stuff together ... and then you DECIDE where to put the cut points ... and, if anyone out there thinks the placing of cut points in typical classes in schools is objective ... then merry christmas to you and to all a good night! == dennis roberts, penn state university educational psychology, 8148632401 http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/droberts.htm
Re: adjusting marks
Dennis writes: but, i counter counter with ... sorry ... grading is PRIMARILY a subjective activity ... there is no other way to put it. now, you can have test scores, project scores, other observations, speeches, homework, knowledge from previous classes, etc. ... you name it. but, in the final analysis ... you put all this stuff together ... and then you DECIDE where to put the cut points ... and, if anyone out there thinks the placing of cut points in typical classes in schools is objective ... then merry christmas to you and to all a good night! To this I agree and it is my position also. Grading is subjective. You can leave the grades alone and subjectively decide on the cut-off points, leave the cut-off points fixed and subjectively decide on adding points to all grades, in non-objective tests you can decide how much to count off, etc. Which doesn't even consider the fact that few (no one I know of) instructors attempt to validate their testing instruments using the concepts of measurement theory (reliablity and validity assesment). This is another thread I would like to see discussed. Shouldn't we teach our Ph.D. students how to use measurement theory in the area that of measuring that they will practice most often: measuring student performance? Mark Eakin Associate Professor Information Systems and Management Sciences Department University of Texas at Arlington [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: adjusting marks
dennis roberts wrote: At 02:34 PM 12/21/99 -0600, EAKIN MARK E wrote: Dennis Roberts writes: i said this ... third ... usually, "curving" means lowering the cutoffs ... that were established at the beginning of a course (maybe in the syllabus) if that is the case ... then there is NO statistical rationale for this ... simply, your "gut" feeling that not enough students are making As, Bs, etc ... SO, you move the cutoffs down until YOU feel comfortable ... and mark countered In the case of my teaching philosoply, I will have to disagree with the above. To me, a student's grade can be expressed as but, i counter counter with ... sorry ... grading is PRIMARILY a subjective activity ... there is no other way to put it. now, you can have test scores, project scores, other observations, speeches, homework, knowledge from previous classes, etc. ... you name it. but, in the final analysis ... you put all this stuff together ... and then you DECIDE where to put the cut points ... and, if anyone out there thinks the placing of cut points in typical classes in schools is objective ... then merry christmas to you and to all a good night! == dennis roberts, penn state university educational psychology, 8148632401 http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/droberts.htm I agree with Dennis, and would like to chime in with some other points. The late W. Edwards Deming stated that the use of a forced distribution for grades is "ruinous" to the entire system of education. It seems to me that grading "on the curve" is in some sense an attempt at using a forced distribution. (And if the goal is indeed to enforce a distribution, then use the ranked data, not the normal distribution; see below for more about ranking.) Use of a forced distribution creates a win-lose scenario for the students. If we are to improve as educators, we need to seek win-win scenarios. Deming himself (if I remember correctly) graded everyone as "A" until the administration noticed, and then they made his courses Pass-Fail. Deming was also very much against ranking students in any way, except for the possible exception of identifying an exceptional student that others might emulate (the 3*sigma student) and identifying the exceptionally poor student ( 3*sigma) for remediation. All other students should be be essentially equivalent, in Deming's philosophy. I would be curious to hear what others have to say about this. Is Deming still with us? And how can we create win-win teaching strategies that will also satisfy administrators? Peter
Re: adjusting marks
Bob Hayden wrote: - Forwarded message from Peter Westfall - Deming himself (if I remember correctly) graded everyone as "A" until the administration noticed, and then they made his courses Pass-Fail. Deming was also very much against ranking students in any way, except for the possible exception of identifying an exceptional student that others might emulate (the 3*sigma student) and identifying the exceptionally poor student ( 3*sigma) for remediation. All other students should be be essentially equivalent, in Deming's philosophy. - End of forwarded message from Peter Westfall - Would you recommend this for drivers' license tests? Oh, I get it, that's what we're doing already! No wonder. I have to admit, it would sure simplify quality control if we considered anything within +- 3 s.d. to be OK. Then I guess the motivation would be to throw in a few clunkers now and then to keep the s.d. as large as possible? Bob, Your remarks sound facetious. I was hoping to stimulate some serious discussion. Have you read anything by Deming? Here is Deming's philosophy, as well as I can paraphrase it for the present situation: Students/teachers/administrators form a system. The system has an aim, which is (presumably) to educate everyone as well as possible, for the good of the students, and for the good of society. What good does ranking do? Does it help to achieve the aim of the system? Or rather, is it simply a weeding process? Is ranking necessary? (these are mainly Deming's words, but I must admit I see lots of value there.) Regarding making the standard deviation large, Deming would say that management's (professors, administrators) job entails minimizing variation among students. This can be done in the usual ways - admissions procedures, advising, prerequisites. Individual classes are "processes" within the larger system, and in the process of continual improvement, one seeks ways to minimize variation within the processes. Deming shows a diagram where the knowledge of people before training is scattered and highly variable, and after training the mean level is higher but the variation smaller. The inference is that the more effective the classroom experience, the less variation in the final levels of knowledge and abilities of the students, as they pertain to the subject at hand. My question is again: Is ranking really necessary? Given the goal of reducing variation, what does it help? Students in competition for the scarce A's will withhold information from one another. Does this achieve the stated aim of the system in an optimal way? W. Edwards Deming would have said, most emphatically, no. He spoke quite often of the educational system particularly in his later years; his message was not at all meant to be limited to manufacturing. Peter _ | | Robert W. Hayden | | Department of Mathematics / | Plymouth State College MSC#29 | | Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264 USA | * | Rural Route 1, Box 10 /| Ashland, NH 03217-9702 | ) (603) 968-9914 (home) L_/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] fax (603) 535-2943 (work)
Re: adjusting marks
- Original Message - From: Peter Westfall [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 1999 6:45 PM Subject: Re: adjusting marks Bob Hayden wrote: - Forwarded message from Peter Westfall - Deming himself (if I remember correctly) graded everyone as "A" until the administration noticed, and then they made his courses Pass-Fail. Deming was also very much against ranking students in any way, except for the possible exception of identifying an exceptional student that others might emulate (the 3*sigma student) and identifying the exceptionally poor student ( 3*sigma) for remediation. All other students should be be essentially equivalent, in Deming's philosophy. - End of forwarded message from Peter Westfall - Would you recommend this for drivers' license tests? Oh, I get it, that's what we're doing already! No wonder. I have to admit, it would sure simplify quality control if we considered anything within +- 3 s.d. to be OK. Then I guess the motivation would be to throw in a few clunkers now and then to keep the s.d. as large as possible? Bob, Your remarks sound facetious. I was hoping to stimulate some serious discussion. Have you read anything by Deming? Here is Deming's philosophy, as well as I can paraphrase it for the present situation: Students/teachers/administrators form a system. The system has an aim, which is (presumably) to educate everyone as well as possible, for the good of the students, and for the good of society. What good does ranking do? Does it help to achieve the aim of the system? Or rather, is it simply a weeding process? Is ranking necessary? (these are mainly Deming's words, but I must admit I see lots of value there.) Regarding making the standard deviation large, Deming would say that management's (professors, administrators) job entails minimizing variation among students. This can be done in the usual ways - admissions procedures, advising, prerequisites. Individual classes are "processes" within the larger system, and in the process of continual improvement, one seeks ways to minimize variation within the processes. Deming shows a diagram where the knowledge of people before training is scattered and highly variable, and after training the mean level is higher but the variation smaller. The inference is that the more effective the classroom experience, the less variation in the final levels of knowledge and abilities of the students, as they pertain to the subject at hand. My question is again: Is ranking really necessary? Given the goal of reducing variation, what does it help? Students in competition for the scarce A's will withhold information from one another. Does this achieve the stated aim of the system in an optimal way? W. Edwards Deming would have said, most emphatically, no. He spoke quite often of the educational system particularly in his later years; his message was not at all meant to be limited to manufacturing. Peter --- Very Intersting I don't agree with Demming. Life is essentially a matter of diversity, and being able to find one's own "niche". The process of ranking is inherent in life whenever there is stress on a population. Going to college is indeed "stress". If in order to suceed, I need to obtain a PhD from Stanford, then I have to get high grades and attain other acheivments to get in that few percent that gets accepted. If my college grades are all "pass", how am I going to compete with the applicate with A+++ grades from NCU? How are new hires for the expensive New York/Washington law firms hired? Not on pass/fail but on which law school and how the professors rated the student and what were the extra curricular activities? Much of this is subjective, but when you have 300 applicants for one job, you have to do some ranking to pick the top 3 or 5. Demming I think has the quality control mindset of pass/fail in terms of manufactured objects, where everything is acceptable between -3 and +3 sigma (Now it is -6 to +6 sigma.) This may be fine for shop work on the floor. In this country the only thing we manufacture now is credit and money to buy manufactured goods from other countries. You need a very diverse population now. The process of ranking as flawed as it is, works, because there are so many areas where one can find his own niche, and ranking is one way of finding one's niche. DAH
Re: adjusting marks
- Forwarded message from David A. Heiser - I don't agree with Demming. Life is essentially a matter of diversity, and being able to find one's own "niche". The process of ranking is inherent in life whenever there is stress on a population. Going to college is indeed "stress". - End of forwarded message from David A. Heiser - H. In my department we are responding to a reviewer who urged greater uniformity among sections of the same course. I sort of agree, but this has raised questions as to what should be the same and what is allowed to vary. Right now we have some sections of Stats.I where weekly Minitab assignments are collected and graded and others where computers are not used at all. I don't think that is good. On the other hand, I don't think we all need to use the same text, as long as we all use respectable ones -- say, ones on the approved list for AP Stats. While this is debatable, my outlook re education is highly colored by my undergraduate experience at MIT. There it was common for the professor to give his (no women in those days) own idea of what was important in his field. These views were often highly idiosyncratic and absolutely brilliant. I had courses containing stuff that was not contained in any published textbook. I loved it and learned a lot. Enforcing uniformity would have turned MIT into just another college. Now, what do you think about the variation in Beethoven's symphonies? Obviously this guy did not have a very good QC system. There is a lot more uniformity in performance these days -- I hear little differences compared to the differences among Toscanini, Walter, Furtwangler, Mengelberg, etc. Is this really an improvment? Likewise cars are all much more alike than they were when we have inline 6s and 8s, v-8s, v-12s, OHV engines, flatheads, etc. Maybe it's for the better but I miss my Buick straight eight. What about spouses? Should they all be the same? _ | | Robert W. Hayden | | Department of Mathematics / | Plymouth State College MSC#29 | | Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264 USA | * | Rural Route 1, Box 10 /| Ashland, NH 03217-9702 | ) (603) 968-9914 (home) L_/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] fax (603) 535-2943 (work)
adjusting marks
My wife wants to adjust marks for a course she is marking. Does someone have a formula or something for using a bell curve to move them up or down? I have done this sort of thing about 15 years ago, but I can't remember any of it! --
Re: adjusting marks
Dear Why, Ted: Sign your query, and provide a usable return address, and someone might consider an answer. It might even be a useful one. But anonymous questions don't deserve a response. On Tue, 21 Dec 1999, Generic [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My wife wants to adjust marks for a course she is marking. Does someone have a formula or something for using a bell curve to move them up or down? What reason have you (or your wife) for supposing that "a bell curve" applies, or ought to apply, to her students? If she wants to adjust marks, she presumably has some idea of what kinds of adjustments she wants to make, and why. Let her have the courage of her convictions. I have done this sort of thing about 15 years ago, but I can't remember any of it! Donald F. Burrill [EMAIL PROTECTED] 348 Hyde Hall, Plymouth State College, [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSC #29, Plymouth, NH 03264 603-535-2597 184 Nashua Road, Bedford, NH 03110 603-471-7128
