Is it easier to get an “A” in modern-day college courses?
At several institutions across the nation, including the University of Idaho, perhaps it is.
Grade inflation is a nation-wide area of discussion — prevalent on many college campuses — and UI is no exception.
There is a perception that during the last decade more students are getting higher grades, said Jeanne Christiansen, UI’s vice provost of Academic Affairs.
“In other words, more A, B and C grades are being awarded over time, and less D and F grades,” Christiansen said. “I don’t have the evidence that is or isn’t the case, but that’s clearly a perception I think people have.”
An all-inclusive study of college grading throughout the years by “grade inflation chroniclers extraordinaire” Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy confirms that the number of A grades awarded has increased significantly, according to an article in The New York Times.
The study concluded that about 15 percent of all letter grades given in 1940 were As and the number of As given increased significantly to 43 percent by 2008.
The data, although less drastic, is similar at UI.
In 1998, 29 percent of all grades in lower division courses, 100 to 299 levels, were As, according to UI Grade Distribution Analysis by Archie George, UI director of Institutional Research and Assessment. That same year, 43 percent of grades given in upper division courses, 300 to 499, were As, and 34 percent of grades given in graduate courses, 500+ level, were As. Those numbers increased to 33, 47 and 46 percent, respectively, by 2011.
A number of factors can be attributed to grade inflation, according to several members of UI faculty and staff.
Christiansen said one variable is that grade inflation might vary between disciplines at the university and there will never be a common standard across the board.
“We’re looking for different kinds of knowledge and skills across many disciplines, and many … ways of learning and doing work,” Christiansen said. “So how one would evaluate performance in a music class, science lab, an economics class and so forth is different.”
It is easier to develop an objective standard in the sciences or math, opposed to the more subjective and interpretive standards that go into evaluating a course based primarily on writing, said Kenton Bird, director of the School of Journalism and Mass Media.
“Because in JAMM classes, they are writing-intensive and it’s difficult to say ‘Well, based on my professional judgment, this was not an A paper — it was missing something,'” Bird said. “The same goes for disciplines such as music or art or video production, where there’s an aesthetic and interpretive dimension to a student’s work.”
Mark Nielson, associate dean for the College of Science, said there are objective and subjective criteria in all disciplines — some simply have more of one than others.
“There’s a little bit of both in everything,” Nielson said. “But I don’t think that’s the source of grade inflation. I think grade inflation can happen in either subjective or objective grading.”
Nielson said a change in standards and the driving force behind those standards, are what cause grade inflation.
Both Bird and Dean of Students Bruce Pitman said one cause of grade inflation might be the heavy emphasis placed on student evaluations of faculty.
“One concern is teachers who have reputations as being firm graders or tough graders do not do well in student course evaluations … and the online student course evaluations carry some weight in how faculty members are assessed,” Bird said. “I think there is tendency among faculty members … to be a little more lax in their grading standards because they don’t want to alienate students in the evaluation process.”
Student evaluations may not be a major factor in grade inflation because there is not a link between good teaching and giving high grades, Nielson said.
“I’ve seen cases where the teacher has given fairly high grades, but still the students don’t like the class because they know they’re not learning anything,” Nielson said.
Bird, Nielson, Pitman and Alton Campbell, UI associate dean of Graduate Studies, said grade inflation might be attributed to the fact that some students feel entitled to higher grades.
Bird said some students feel entitled to a grade of ‘B’ or better for merely doing their work, regardless of the quality of work.
“Students are viewed in some places as consumers,” Pitman said. “And students feel that if they’ve plunked their money down, then that is part of a sense of entitlement, that if they show up to class and do adequate work, then they deserve a pretty good grade … I think it’s a cultural shift in terms of students viewing education as a commodity that you buy, opposed to a process — a process which you are changed by.”
Nielson said he doesn’t think UI has moved completely toward a business-consumer relationship, but it’s pointing in that direction more than it used to be.
Both Bird and Campbell said the absence of plus and minus grading at UI might also contribute to grade inflation.
“… An obstacle to giving more precise grades is the absence of plus-minus grading,” Bird said. “I taught for three years at Colorado State and I really appreciated the ability to reward students not just with A, B, C, D and F, but also with an A-, B-, C+, etc.”
Campbell said pluses and minuses allow for a more reasonable interpretation of students’ grades.
“A student was in here yesterday and made an 89 (percent) in a course, and the professor would not move them up to a 90 (percent), but that won’t show on their transcript,” Campbell said. “And somebody could be at a B+ versus somebody with an 80, and there’s a lot of difference. I personally would like to see more discrimination between grades.”
Nielson and Pitman both said grade inflation is most likely prevalent in all levels of education, and not just the university level.
“There are many concerns about grade inflation in high schools because there’s a pressure to prepare students for being admitted to higher education,” Pitman said.
Nielson said grade inflation is more severe in K-12 than it is in college.
“The other thing that happens in high school is that (GPAs) vary from school to school,” Nielson said. “Some high schools, everybody’s got a 3.5 and above, and there’s a quarter of the graduating class that gets a 3.8 and above. And some other schools, if you have a 3.7, that’s good.”
Nielson said it needs to be fixed because decisions like admission to colleges and scholarships are based on GPAs.
“If you can’t judge a high school GPA from one school equally with a high school GPA at another school, that’s a real problem,” Nielson said.
Pitman said grade inflation is probably inevitable, and there’s nothing to change it.
“It’s not dictated by institutional mandate — it is not dictated by some kind of administrative change that would change the rules of the game,” Pitman said. “The grades are given instructor by instructor, and each instructor has the right to set the standards for his or her classroom. And fundamentally, university administration really can’t change that, in honoring the precepts of academic freedom.”
Grade inflation has not been too dramatic, and will self-correct at some point, Nielson said.
“If in fact, we’re getting too lax in grading standards, at some point the job market will correct that for us,” Nielson said. “If students are going out with qualifications that look better than their actual preparation, well, employers will notice that, and the universities will hear about it … and there would be a correction because of that.”
Campbell said it is ironic that the amount of time students spend studying has gone down over the years, but grades have gone up.
“In some ways, you can generalize it and say they’re probably not learning as much book material, but they may be learning other stuff that’s not documented,” Campbell said. “The difference in studying is taken up by other things now — extracurricular (activities) and work — and who’s to say that’s a bad thing?”