speaking of grades

[hornblower]

How common is it for college courses to bell curve class marks?

It was pretty much the norm when I was a student 25 yrs ago but dd hasn't heard a peep about it from her instructors now.

 

[EKS]

That's how it was done 30 years ago in my classes as well.  In my son's CC classes, it was all done by percentages.  Occasionally the instructors would give the stats for the class, but not often (at least that I heard about).

[G5052]

No, I don't curve.  My assignments and exams are set up for mastery of the material according the the state goals and objectives.  I've worked hard to make sure that my exams are fair and that they match the material.

 

On my midterm this week, the grades ranged from 30-100%.  I checked the details, and it was a good test other than the horrible spread.  The average was a high "C," and when I took out the students who failed it, there weren't any questions that the majority of those who passed it missed.

[Hunter's Moon]

None of my classes have had a curve in the 3 years I've been in college.

[elegantlion]

none of my classes have had a curve either. 

[Jen in NY]

All of my dd's classes are graded on a bell curve. Class mean=C or close to it. One standard deviation above=B. Two above=A.

It's pretty brutal.

[snowbeltmom]

I don't like grading on the curve because I think it contributes to an atmosphere of competitiveness among the students rather than an atmosphere of collaboration.

[creekland]

Many (not all) of middle son's classes curve because the tests are designed to be difficult to really get a chance to see what some students can do.  The mean should end up as a C of some sort.  These classes do not curve down, so if there were to be a really talented class, they could end up with a higher percentage of As than expected.  However, when there is more than one section of a class (three Chem 101 classes), the curve is applied across all three sections as all three take the same test at the same time.  One class/section being better might not mean much if another is less than average.

 

I don't recall ever asking oldest if his classes were curved and we haven't checked with youngest yet either.  Middle naturally shares the most with us and he's been rather proud of being able to get high grades without having to worry about the curve.  We're a "safe" area he can celebrate with.  He doesn't want to do that with friends there for obvious reasons.

[FaithManor]

I only had one college class graded on a curve and that was a philosophy course that was fairly difficult. The professor was strict so he did curve down.

 

I was excellent in philosophy as was a friend of mine from the music department. We received near perfect grades on our papers, aced all of our exams, and answered the "extra credit" essay questions on the midterm and final, receiving full marks on those questions as well. My final grade was a 119% and my friends' s was 112%. We did not know he would curve to the detriment of the class and found that out after it was too late to do anything about it such as not answering those extra exam questions or letting our exam grades slip a few points. So he set an A at 115% and adjusted accordingly which meant a few 4.0' s were ruined, and at the lower end, some students failed because of us. When he announced what the curve was, he let us out of class early because the number of students in the course was small enough most had figured out that we were the reason their grades were going to tank by a full letter grade and a half. Thankfully, it was the last day of regular class.

 

I have never felt more self conscious in my life!

 

As a result, I have strong, negative reactions about curve grading. Though some of my fellow high school teachers graded on a curve back in the 90's, I wanted nothing to do with it. I believe that in the local high school and community college, there are established policies to prevent the above scenario.

[klmama]

My teen's community college coursework isn't graded on a curve  The syllabus spells out exactly how many points are available through each assignment and test, and everyone who earns enough points gets the related letter grade.

[Kareni]

My daughter's college had an informal policy about grades which strongly discouraged discussing them in public or with individuals whose permission had not been obtained.  So asking "How did you do?" after walking out of an exam would be frowned upon.  A private conversation between friends who had agreed to discuss grades would be permissible.  While this policy was not codified, it was considered that discussing grades in some circumstances would be against the spirit of the college's honor code.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[BlsdMama]

None of DD's classes are graded on a curve this semester.

[Peach]

Oh wow, Faithmanor, that's awful, especially for him to give details! I never had any courses graded on a curve (I graduated in '85) and don't have any now. I detest the idea as I don't think the grades reflect what a student actually knows about the subject but where he stands in relation to the rest. I don't think it fair to the students to base their grades on everyone else's performance. 

I think there's a bigger question here concerning what grades mean, and the role of assessment in education.  For me, ideally, there should be some objective measure of what a student should know after taken some class.  To often, it seems that grading on a curve is the result of a poor match between the difficulty of the exam and what the students have learned.  We're all heard horror stories about exams that have absurdly low mean scores.  Grading on a curve doesn't fix the underlying problem, if most of the students didn't learn the material on most of the test: either the test was poorly written, or the students didn't learn what they were supposed to.

[Erin]

20 years ago, I had a single college class that graded on the curve.  And, because I'd never had experience with such a thing, I had to ask the prof. what it meant.  lol

[kiana]

I hate grading on a curve.

 

I don't see a problem with it if there are sections with say, 500+ students in them, or something. But in a 30 student class, statistical anomalies make the idea of a normal distribution essentially rubbish. If 10 talented students enroll together, the idea that less than half of them can get A's is patently ridiculous.

 

So I don't curve and I explain why they really don't want a curve. But I do scale -- if I realize that a problem I wrote was very bad I may throw it out and rescale the grades, or something similar. 

 

I keep telling them that I'd love to see a semester when everyone earns A's and B's, but so far it hasn't happened. 

[regentrude]

We have absolute grade cuts and do not curve, but the grade distribution ends up in a bell shape anyway, because students' abilities and aptitudes are following a distribution,

[Penguin]

Nearly all of my mechanical engineering courses were graded on a curve, but that was nearly thirty years ago. This thread has me wondering if that is still the norm in engineering.

 

I truly do not know, but some googling this morning leads me to think that there is still plenty of curved grading in engineering.

[Alice]

Several of my science classes in college were graded on a curve. One in particular, Advanced Molecular Genetics,  I remember because I did very well in the class so was known as the person who "broke the curve". The grades in that class on tests were ridiculously low, averages of around 60. I typically would get an A without the curve and so I had a lot of people mad at me. I'm not one to talk about my grades so I'm not sure how people knew. That class was also the one where an older pre-med student cornered me and demanded to know what my secret was. He wouldn't believe me when I said I just studied a lot. 

 

In medical school, they curved sort of. We had a stupid grading scale (Honors, High Pass, Pass, Low Pass, Fail) instead of the normal A-F scale. I think it was because Pass was supposed to be equivalent to a B and HP an B+/A- and Honors an A. Only 10% of a class could get Honors, so the percent correct on any given test needed to get an honors changed. 10% got HP. Then the majority got Pass. Low Pass and Fail were reserved for a certain actual percentage on the tests, I can't remember now what it was. It made fro a pretty cutthroat environment since we were all essentially competing against each other. We all had an individual number and grades were posted by number so theoretically no one knew who was getting what grades. Again, somehow people knew. Or at least, thought they did. I'm pretty sure they grade the same way because I googled and it seems like it's pretty much the same system. 

[retiredHSmom]

Nearly all of my mechanical engineering courses were graded on a curve, but that was nearly thirty years ago. This thread has me wondering if that is still the norm in engineering.

 

I truly do not know, but some googling this morning leads me to think that there is still plenty of curved grading in engineering.

My daughter is a mechanical engineering major at a large state university. In her freshman and sophomore year nothing was graded on a curve. She is now a junior and her professor for fluid dynamics has indicated that final grades for his class will be curved. The average grade on his last test was a 64.

[creekland]

I think there's a bigger question here concerning what grades mean, and the role of assessment in education.  For me, ideally, there should be some objective measure of what a student should know after taken some class.  To often, it seems that grading on a curve is the result of a poor match between the difficulty of the exam and what the students have learned.  We're all heard horror stories about exams that have absurdly low mean scores.  Grading on a curve doesn't fix the underlying problem, if most of the students didn't learn the material on most of the test: either the test was poorly written, or the students didn't learn what they were supposed to.

 

Middle son's tests in college are sometimes covering what they should know and sometimes presenting them with a whole new situation and seeing what ideas they come up with.  His is a research school, so it makes sense.

 

If it were all rote memorization and application then I could see what you are saying, but sometimes it isn't.  I took his first Bio 101 test to our DE teacher at school (mainly to combat what he was telling the kids that his class was identical to ANY Bio 101 they would find in college at any level).  It took him seconds to figure out he was incorrect.  He would not have been able to get an A on that test.  He questioned how any "first year" Bio students would know some of that stuff or be able to figure it out.  He learned that some schools expect an AP/DE class level as foundation and DO go into more depth + get more challenging.

 

However, he also thought some of the questions were quite worthy of thought - producing thought.  I suspect he might have grabbed some ideas from it.

 

I hate grading on a curve.

 

I don't see a problem with it if there are sections with say, 500+ students in them, or something. But in a 30 student class, statistical anomalies make the idea of a normal distribution essentially rubbish. If 10 talented students enroll together, the idea that less than half of them can get A's is patently ridiculous.

 

So I don't curve and I explain why they really don't want a curve. But I do scale -- if I realize that a problem I wrote was very bad I may throw it out and rescale the grades, or something similar. 

 

I keep telling them that I'd love to see a semester when everyone earns A's and B's, but so far it hasn't happened. 

 

Again, my guy's classes do not curve down.  If a class had talented students they would all get As.  The syllabus lists points and cut off levels that are guaranteed.  However, after that there's sometimes a decent curve too.  My guy is proud of getting As prior to the curve for the most part.  However, he was also quite pleased that his C grade on a Physics test curved up to a B+ recently.  It was his 4th test in 3 days and he admitted he didn't get to study as much as he wanted for it.  Since he's a perfectionist, he's still beating himself up over a B+...  :glare:

[kiana]

, my guy's classes do not curve down.  If a class had talented students they would all get As.  The syllabus lists points and cut off levels that are guaranteed.  However, after that there's sometimes a decent curve too.  My guy is proud of getting As prior to the curve for the most part.  However, he was also quite pleased that his C grade on a Physics test curved up to a B+ recently.  It was his 4th test in 3 days and he admitted he didn't get to study as much as he wanted for it.  Since he's a perfectionist, he's still beating himself up over a B+...  :glare:

 

I don't really consider this to be grading on a curve, but more scaling the grades to an appropriate level. I have no issues with writing difficult tests and then scaling the grades appropriately. 

 

Strictly speaking a curve should mean making it fit a normal distribution whether or not it's naturally that way (which is what I don't like). 

 I have no issues with writing difficult tests and then scaling the grades appropriately. 

 

 

I guess I don't know exactly what you mean by a "difficult" test.  Too often, using a curve to grade is a crutch by a lazy exam writer.  If the purpose of a test is to validate that students have learned what was taught, and a "difficult" test has questions that no one in the class can get right, what does that show?  If the exam is curved (and why a bell curve, at that?), it effectively throws out those questions, but students may have wasted time trying to get those right, and the instructor may have wasted an opportunity to measure whether some other aspect of the syllabus was learned.

[Penguin]

Tania, thanks for that update.  Our grades were probably scaled rather than curved - too long ago to remember.  But the word curved was always used. I do remember that much!

[kiana]

I guess I don't know exactly what you mean by a "difficult" test.  Too often, using a curve to grade is a crutch by a lazy exam writer.  If the purpose of a test is to validate that students have learned what was taught, and a "difficult" test has questions that no one in the class can get right, what does that show?  If the exam is curved (and why a bell curve, at that?), it effectively throws out those questions, but students may have wasted time trying to get those right, and the instructor may have wasted an opportunity to measure whether some other aspect of the syllabus was learned.

It is not so much questions that nobody in the class can get right, but questions which will challenge the students in the class who are working at the highest level.

 

What is so sacred about the 90-80-70-60 scale for grading that it cannot be abandoned in favor of another scale?

[creekland]

a "difficult" test has questions that no one in the class can get right, what does that show? 

 

I don't think there's been any test where there were questions no student got correct.  Sometimes there isn't even ONE correct answer.  Many of these problems can be solved multiple ways, but the student needs to make sure the prof (or TA grading it) can follow their logic and it makes sense to them as something to try.

 

Even with these curves (or scaling) there are often students who get close to 100%.  I happen to suspect since my guy is one of them it's why he's been sought after for real lab research and to be a TA himself.  He hasn't had to apply (except formally) - he's been sought out.

 

If the "thinking" questions weren't there, how would they be able to spot those who can do them?  It's not difficult at this level school for kids to have the rote memorization part down.

 

There are jobs for all - those who use what is known knowledge and those who can think to come up with the unknown - or potentials to try to figure out an unknown.  I just don't know that test writers can figure out ahead of time exactly how much of what needs to be there.  At his school, in these classes, the tests are different every semester, so it's not like they can reuse old standards like ps tends to do.

 

The goal with the curve/scaling is to fit the bell curve afterward, but they won't make it do that if the A/B side is already high.  Why not a bell curve?

If it were all rote memorization and application then I could see what you are saying, but sometimes it isn't.  I took his first Bio 101 test to our DE teacher at school 

 

And what would happen if the DE teacher gave the university bio test to his students?  No doubt they would all do poorly, but they probably wouldn't do equally poorly, so you could still grade it on a curve, and hand out some A's, B's, C's and D's.  Does this mean the students who received A's understood the material at the appropriate level?  No, but that's what can happen with curved grading.

[katilac]

No curved grading for me in college about 25 years ago. 

 

No curved grading yet for dd in DE at the local university, English Composition and French. Next semester she will have a math course, so we will see if they do it differently. 

 

 

[Bootsie]

In almost thirty years of teaching college courses, I have never graded on a curve and I have heard of few professors truly curving grades based on a bell curve.  I have never personally known of a professor lowering someone's grade because the average on an exam was above a 75 to result in a bell curve distribution.  Anytime I have heard talk about a "curve" it was simply adding points to everyone's grade to make the pass rate higher.  

 

Many professors I know talk about a bimodal distribution, rather than a bell shaped distribution in their classes--there are the A and B students who are motivated and work hard and there are the D and F students who aren't putting in the time or do not have the appropriate background to do the coursework.  

 

I just graded an exam for my course.  The average was a "72."  The range of the exam was 20-100.  It was a multiple choice exam with four answers for each question--so someone randomly guessing on average would make a 25.  Having a few students in the 20-35 score range--who definitely did not know the material really impacts the average--there were many more As and Bs on the exam than there were Cs

[Bootsie]

In almost thirty years of teaching college courses, I have never graded on a curve and I have heard of few professors truly curving grades based on a bell curve.  I have never personally known of a professor lowering someone's grade because the average on an exam was above a 75 to result in a bell curve distribution.  Anytime I have heard talk about a "curve" it was simply adding points to everyone's grade to make the pass rate higher.  

 

Many professors I know talk about a bimodal distribution, rather than a bell shaped distribution in their classes--there are the A and B students who are motivated and work hard and there are the D and F students who aren't putting in the time or do not have the appropriate background to do the coursework.  

 

I just graded an exam for my course.  The average was a "72."  The range of the exam was 20-100.  It was a multiple choice exam with four answers for each question--so someone randomly guessing on average would make a 25.  Having a few students in the 20-35 score range--who definitely did not know the material really impacts the average--there were many more As and Bs on the exam than there were Cs