“Yesterday, my colleague Matt Pianalto and I were having a brief discussion in the hallway about grading. Something I’ve wondered about in the past, and which we discussed, is whether a particular psychological cause sometimes contributes to grade inflation …” (more)
[Mike Austin, In Socrates’ Wake, 8 February]
“… Now in one sense this doesn’t matter. Having a degree shows that you have read and understood a lot of complex material and produce sensible conclusions from it, and acquired a range of discipline appropriate skills, some of less use than others – in my case the stand out for long term uselessness was being able to hold a rat with one hand while colour coding its tail with the other …” (more)
[Thoughts of a knowledge geek, 7 January]
“The Christmas Day edition of the New York Times carried an interesting article entitled ‘A Quest to Explain What Grades Really Mean’. The motivation for the article was based around concerns relating to grade inflation, a topic which has been discussed before on this blog …” (more)
[Martin Ryan, Geary Behavioural Economics Blog, 2 January]
“Academic inflation is as dangerous to any country as its financial equivalent. When university degrees no longer represent a genuine assessment of a graduate’s abilities, the whole intellectual currency is debased …” (more)
[Sunday Telegraph, 2 January]
“The full extent to which British universities have inflated degree grades and are awarding far more firsts and upper seconds than in previous decades have been revealed …” (more)
[David Barrett, Sunday Telegraph, 2 January]
“Andrew Perrin is right on target in criticizing grade inflation. High grades should be awarded for clearly good work. But here’s the problem with grade inflation criticism. There is legitimate disagreement on the alternative …” (more)
[orgtheory.net, 2 January]
“At my graduation ceremony in 1992 there was only one graduate who was awarded a first in my subject. It made an impression on me because the young woman concerned was rewarded with far greater applause – in volume and duration – plus a few words with the vice-chancellor …” (more)
[David Barrett, Sunday Telegraph, 2 January]
“The controversial issue of so called ‘grade inflation’ in the education system which erupted early this year has resurfaced following disturbing findings in an OECD report last week …” (more)
[Martha Kearns, Sunday Business Post, 12 December]
“As a teacher, this has been the most successful year of my life – at least in terms of the exam success of my pupils (as was last year … and the year before that … and the year before that …). Indeed if we use overall exam performance as the arbiter of academic success then, each succeeding year, pupils all over the world must be working harder and harder …” (more)
[Jeremy Stone, The Frog Blog, 18 September]
“Grade inflation in universities and colleges may be fuelled by students threatening legal action when they do not get high marks, according to the head of the Irish qualifications agency …” (more)
[Ken Foxe and John Downes, Sunday Tribune, 22 August]
“College students study a lot less now than in the 1960s, yet they get better grades. For students, these trends must seem like marvelous developments. But they raise questions about both declining rigor and potential grade inflation in higher education …” (more)
[Daniel de Vise, Washington Post, 22 July]
“A report last week by the Association of Graduate Recruiters found almost four out of five employers combing through job applications from graduates are insisting on a minimum 2:1 grade. But if recruiters have raised the bar, some believe universities have done the opposite …” (more)
[BBC News, 12 July]
“Top universities are struggling to select the best students because of exam ‘grade inflation’, according to research. More than half of institutions found it increasingly hard to pick out top candidates because A-level results have been artificially boosted by re-sits and ‘teaching to the test’, it was claimed …” (more)
[Graeme Paton, Daily Telegraph, 6 July]
“Responding to a recent study suggesting that demanding teachers receive lower student evaluations, this follow-up article in the Chronicle of Higher Education references a study purportedly showing a steady decline in the number of hours college students devote to their studies while average GPA’s have simultaneously risen …” (more)
[Adjunct Law Prof Blog, 21 June]
“Madam, – I was disheartened to read your Front page article regarding the findings of a report on grade inflation at the Leaving Certificate level (June 7th). As a Leaving Cert student with a mere 48 hours left (at the time of writing this) until the exams commence, I was dismayed to read about these statistics and what they might mean for me …” (more)
[Laura Breslin, Irish Times, 9 June]
“A recent article in the Irish Times refers to document prepared by the State Examination Commission acknowledging grade inflation in the Leaving Certificate. This possibility is not new, of course, and has been widely discussed before, sometimes in heated terms …” (more)
[Kevin Denny, Geary Behavioural Economics Blog, 7 June]
“The State Examination Commission has acknowledged serious grade inflation in the Leaving Cert results, in briefing documents prepared for the Department of Education. The Commission says the number of students gaining the highest grades (A1, A2 and B1) has almost doubled at higher level since 1992 …” (more)
[Sean Flynn, Irish Times, 7 June]
“Loyola law students are having trouble getting jobs. The economy, it would seem, is bad. So administrators and faculty are on the case. They care about their students. They are going to make everything right. They are going to retroactively raise every grade on every transcript by one third (a “B-” become a “B”; a “B” becomes a “B+”; etc.). Because cooking the transcripts is just the sort of thing that’s called for in these tough economic times …” (more)
[Critical Mass, 4 May]
“In my last post, I discussed two examples of how administrators contribute to the problem of grade inflation, either by implementing policies that inadvertently put pressures on professors to assign higher grades, or deliberately, by arbitrarily raising the grades of entire classes to keep specific students happy. In the later case, inflation is complaint-driven as individual administrators try to ‘keep the customers happy,’ by overturning a professor’s grades in a course, thereby interfering with that professor’s attempt to maintain certain standards …” (more)
[Ivory Tower Blues, 23 April]
“I’d attribute much of the growth in this chart, which is capturing grade inflation over time, to university financial concerns, an increased emphasis on retention in higher ed …” (more)
[Scott Beaulier, The Economic Way of Thinking, 20 April]
Ninth Level Ireland 