Grade Inflation

The solution rests within universities across Canada, which are largely responsible for the training and education of teachers. The research shows that teachers feel largely unprepared for assessment in schools, with new teachers feeling particularly vulnerable. So we must find ways to effectively prepare teachers — so that they are better able to make fair assessment and grading decisions.

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Both pre-service teacher education programs and in-service professional learning opportunities are sites for enhancing teacher assessment literacy. While pre-service teacher education programs have increased levels of direct instruction in the area of assessment over the past five years, there appears to be a need for additional work. The grade inflation problem requires a long-term educational change initiative. And this requires commitment from across institutions, provinces, school boards and ministries of education. One must concede that there is always going to be some variability across schools as teachers must exercise their professional judgement when arriving at final grades.

Grading is inherently a subjective evaluation of assessment evidence. However, the key is to ensure teachers have the skills and knowledge to ensure their evaluations are reliable and fair for their students — in relation to provincial curriculum expectations. With enough data, one can envision adjustment factors across all provinces, universities and specific programs. But this solution does not address the root cause of the problem.

And this could enable us to better support our teachers in student assessment. This is a corrected version of an article originally published on Oct. Pets in Victorian paintings — Egham, Surrey. The history of pets and family life — Egham, Surrey. Available editions United Kingdom. A possible source of grade inflation may have been pressure from administrators to raise grades.

A case was documented in which a math dean adjusted grades without the consent or authorization of the instructor. When comparing the — school years with that of the years from —, it was discovered that the percentage of As assigned in levels in the Faculty of Arts had risen as follows for every department first figure is percentage of As for — years, second is percentage of As for — years: Annual grade inflation has been a continuing feature of the UK public examination system for several decades.

In April Glenys Stacey, the chief executive of Ofqual, the UK public examinations regulator, acknowledged its presence and announced a series of measures to restrict further grade devaluation. The articles are based on a paper by Jeremy Hodgen, of King's College London , who compared the results of 3, fourteen-year-olds sitting a mathematics paper containing questions identical to one set in He found similar overall levels of attainment between the two cohorts.

With the replacement of the previous exams with the GCSE and a move from a normative to a criterion referencing grade system, reliant on examiner judgement, the percentage obtaining at least a grade C , in mathematics, has risen to An analysis of the GCSE awards to pupils achieving the average YELLIS ability test score of 45, between —, identified a general increase in awards over the 10 years, ranging from 0. It has also been suggested that the incorporation of GCSE awards into school league tables, and the setting of School level targets, at above national average levels of attainment, may be a driver of GCSE grade inflation.

A number of reports have also suggested the licensing of competing commercial entities to award GCSEs may be contributing to the increasing pass rates, with schools that aggressively switch providers appearing to obtain an advantage in exam pass rates. The five exam boards that certify examinations have little incentive to uphold higher standards than their competitors - although an independent regulator, Ofqual is in place to guard against lowering standards. Nevertheless, there remains strong incentives for "gaming" and "teaching to the test".

In response to allegations of grade inflation, a number of schools have switched to other exams, such as the International GCSE, or the International Baccalaureate middle years programme. Hansard , DfE Gender and education: The validity of this system was questioned in the early s because, rather than reflecting a standard, norm referencing might have simply maintained a specific proportion of candidates at each grade. In small cohorts this could lead to grades which only indicated a candidate's relative performance against others sitting that particular paper, and so not be comparable between cohorts e.

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In the Secondary Examinations Council decided to replace the norm referencing with criteria referencing, wherein grades would be awarded on "examiner judgement". From until the achievement levels have risen by about an average of 2 grades in each subject. Exceptionally, from the rise appears to be about 3. An educationalist at Buckingham University thinks grades inflate when examiners check scripts that lie on boundaries between grades. The Higher Education Statistics Agency gathers and publishes annual statistics relating to the higher qualifications awarded in the UK.

The Students and Qualifiers data sets indicate that the percentage of "GOOD" first degree classifications have increased annually since Between and , the proportion of upper second class honours awarded for first degree courses increased from The number of third class honours, "ordinary" i.

Grade inflation in UK universities appears to be caused by administrators wishing to improve their league table standings, a desire to attract non-European students who can be charged full fees, academics who fear receiving unfavourable course evaluations from students, the breakdown of the external examiner system, and a growing indifference towards academic dishonesty and plagiarism.

Grade inflation

The doubling of institutions and quadrupling of student numbers, following the Further and Higher Education Act , makes any direct comparison of pre and post awards non trivial, if not meaningless. In CBSE , a 95 per cent aggregate is 21 times as prevalent today as it was in , and a 90 per cent close to nine times as prevalent. In the ISC Board , a 95 per cent is almost twice as prevalent today as it was in CBSE decided to lead by example and promised not to inflate its results. But although the results have seen a small correction, the board has clearly not discarded the practice completely.

Grade inflation is a specific instance of a broader phenomena of ratings or reputation inflation where rating decisions are made by individuals. This has been occurring in peer-to-peer services such as Uber. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.



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Grade Inflation – TheTLS

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The trouble with grade inflation

Archived from the original on The Ivory Tower Blues. University of Waterloo newmedia Journalism, Catherine Tylee". Excellent school marks don't necessarily lead to excellent exam marks" PDF. Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. Maclean's, Robert Laurie, June 05, ". Archived from the original on March 20, Archived from the original on — via Canada.

The Peak Publications Society. University of Waterloo, pp. The only surprise is that the educational establishment has admitted it". Is the performance of our secondary school pupils really in relative decline? Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved 12 September The Times London, England The Times London, England. A third key consideration is, when rising grades question the integrity of higher education, whose responsibility is it to address this and ensure confidence? The UK government now believes universities left to their own devices will not tackle grade inflation and has challenged the sector to address the problem.

And the new regulatory body in England, the Office for Students , has powers to take action against universities failing to comply with sector agreed standards. If successful, other countries may seek to learn from the English example. Follow him on Twitter: Priya Kapade is a doctoral researcher at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom, and has over 15 years of experience in higher education administration.

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