[tips] Re: grading and standards and multiple institutions

[Christopher D. Green]

Someone earlier suggested that a passing mark of 50% means that knowing 
half the material is sufficient for passing the course. This 
interpretation, of course, assumes, that our grading is on a ratio 
scale. This strikes me as highly questionable.

The way we notate the pass threshold strikes me as being very nearly 
arbitrary. People who get 0 do not know literally NOTHING about the 
topic, and those who get 100% certainly do not know EVERYTHING there is 
to know about a topic. In any case, the scope and detail of the material 
presented in nominally equivalent courses (e.g., two introductory 
cognition courses) varies so much from school to school (even from 
section to section  within a school), that the percentages are 
effectively meaningless, except as a rough ordinal scale. (That is to 
say, I really have only the vaguest idea (quartiles?) where the student 
to whom I give my highest mark to would place in another section of the 
same course taught by another teacher.)

The only thing that is actually more or less "fixed" (much as we may 
want to deny it) is that a large majority, but usually not all, of the 
students in a given course must pass. This is true (IMHO) regardless of 
the numerical threshold set for a "pass", the difficulty of the material 
presented, the level of detail required in examination, and pretty well 
anything else about the course you would like to name.

Note, I am not defending this practice. I am only trying to divert the 
discussion from the futile and  long-standing debate about whether, 
e.g., US school are "harder" than Canadian schools simply because the 
former  assign the characters "60" to the pass threshold while the 
latter assign the characters "50" to it. My guess is that one would find 
much greater variability in the depth of knowledge required to pass 
courses among schools WITHIN the two countries than BETWEEN them, and 
the characters by which they signify a pass are more or less arbitrary.

Regards,
Chris
--
Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada

[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.yorku.ca/christo/
phone: 416-736-5115 ext. 66164
fax: 416-736-5814
===========================

Stuart McKelvie wrote:
 
Dear Tipsters,
 
Anecdote:
 
I my first undergraduate mathematics honours class,  the great Dr. Rankin at the University of Glasgow set the following standards on Day 1:
 
At the end of the course, 70% or better probably means you are heading for first class honours in 2 years time.
                                      50% or better probably means you are 
heading for second class honours..
                                      30% or better (YES!) probably means you 
are heading for third class honours..
                                      less than 30% means that you fail the 
course.
 
So 30% was the pass mark!
 
Sincerely,
 
Stuart
 
P.S. I will not reveal my mark.....
 
___________________________________________________________________
 
Stuart J. McKelvie, Ph.D.,           Phone: (819)822-9600, Extension 2402
Department of Psychology,              Fax: (819)822-9660
Bishop's University,
2600 College Street,
Sherbrooke (Lennoxville),
Qu¨bec J1M 0C8,
Canada.
 
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
Bishop's University Psychology Department Web Page:
http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
___________________________________________________________

________________________________

From: Jim Clark [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wed 5/9/2007 12:49 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: [tips] Re: grading and standards and multiple institutions



Hi

It is common (standard?) in Canadian universities for 50% to define the
pass boundary (at least in the 3-4 I have taught for).  It is an
interesting question whether students interpret it as meaning they need
to know "half" the material, but that is of course not a necessary
implication of 50% (on a single test, for example) being a pass.  The
average mark on a test will be some function of the proportion of
questions of different difficulty on the test, as implied by Steven's
comment about "raising the bar."  Put enough challenging questions on a
test and 50% might actually represent A performance, not simply a pass.
Put enough easy questions and then 60, 70, or even 80% might be a more
realistic value for a pass.

It would be interesting to know how different grading standards relate
to some common metric (e.g., GRE scores?).

Take care
Jim

James M. Clark
Professor of Psychology
204-786-9757
204-774-4134 Fax
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

  
Steven Specht <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08-May-07 4:34:47 PM >>>
        
Stuart,
Are you implying that a grade of 50% is passing at your institution? 
I'm not interested in getting into any argument about appropriateness

of grading standards anywhere (since I have no idea about the details

of the testing and grading procedures at your institution). That is, I

realize that 50% can be quite impressive depending upon difficulty of

material. But it raises an interesting question in that it conveys to

students that knowing "half" the material is sufficient for a passing

grade. Do others have a similar policy?
Perhaps on a related note... I teach statistics at Cornell University

during the summer session. I typically give exams which are a  bit more

challenging than the ones I have given at other institutions (because

the Cornell students perform very well indeed). I'm always a bit 
tempted to "raise the bar" a bit given that the mean on the exams is 
typically in the mid-high 80% range (or higher). On the other hand, 
perhaps a statistics course should cover certain material and should 
remain relatively the same no matter where one teaches it. I have been

teaching with the Gravetter & Wallnau text for almost 20 years now and

find that every semester I get through less because of the ever-eroding

competencies of my students. Would love to hear from others who teach

at multiple institutions of differing quality.
-S

On May 8, 2007, at 5:14 PM, Stuart McKelvie wrote:

  
Dear Tipsters,

I would not argue that the student should be given an A- in the 
circumstances presented, particularly when 90% is the cutoff.

However, the case raises interesting questions about the precision of
    

  
our grading. If I had a final grade of 88.61% I would automatically
    

  
round it to 89%, just as a grade of 88.31% would become 88. Because
    
we 
  
actually give percentage grades at our institution, I am not faced 
with the issue of granting an A- or a B. However, when someone
    
obtains 
  
49.61, I am faced with the question of whether to pass the student.

In these circumstances, and indeed whenever the final percentage is
    

  
above 48, I do review the components of the mark, particularly
    
because 
  
the maximum percentage based on multiple choice in my courses is 18%.
    

  
At the end of the course, the part of the student's work that I 
usually have to hand is the final examination. I look over that to
    
see 
  
how I allocated points.

The general question is this:

When we calculate a final percentage grade, how reliable is it? 
Another way of putting this is: What is the standard error of 
measurement?

Sincerely,

Stuart



______________________________________________
Stuart J. McKelvie, Ph.D.,
Department of Psychology,
Bishop's University,
2600 College Street,
 Sherbrooke,
Qusbec J1M 0C8,
Canada.

E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
              or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Phone: (819)822-9600, Extension 2402
Fax: (819)822-9661

Bishop's Psychology Department Web Page:
http/:www.ubishops.ca/ccc/dev/soc/psy
__________________________________


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========================================================
Steven M. Specht, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Utica College
Utica, NY 13502
(315) 792-3171

"Mice may be called large or small, and so may elephants, and it is 
quite understandable when someone says it was a large mouse that ran up

the trunk of a small elephant" (S. S. Stevens, 1958)


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