A very interesting man, this Rancourt, a rebel with a small cause, and a very imaginable but stupid, rule driven reaction of his university, thus a very interesting case. I have often asked myself what makes students work. The best information is to be had from ones own experience, thus: what made me study hard? I can assure you that it was the assignements and exams that made me work, but that seems not to be the question here, it is about grades. As Gore Vidal said: "to succeed is not enough, others must fail". I did not study for grades, the grades came to me. Present day students (I am an old man and times were different back in the sixties) in Holland at least, are accused of having a 'just enough' attitude. They do not strive after exellent grades, but are occupied with passing, and thus with gaining credits. Now credits was something new in the old days. In Holland it was introduced early in the 70's and it made a considerable difference in student's attitudes, as it became relatively unimportant what you had studied, as long as you had enough credits for passing an exam and thus for graduating. Of course about half of the credits were coupled to specific fundamental courses, which not many would have freely chosen, such as statistics, and the interesting subjects were relatively free. The higher grades on the lists of my students tend to be on these freely chosen subjects but not exclusively. Is this an argument in favor of intrinsic motivation? I believe it is both: you have to have intrinsic as well as extrinsic reasons for getting an academic grade. The excellence comes, as far as I can see from something totally different: Identification with a self chosen teacher. I may well be that Rancourt has some succes in this aspect Hans
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