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Analysis on the dangerous myth of grade inflation
Analysis on the dangerous myth of grade inflation
Grade Inflation Gone Wild
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REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Grading system has an effect in the mentality of students. For example, a certain school has a zero-based grading system. The effect of this in students is that it makes the students think that the subjects are hard because it is difficult achieve a high grade in class. However, the grading system is the one making it hard for them to get a high grade in their subjects. A strict grading system in some schools can encourage students to study hard and bring out the best in them. Also, this is a way of making the students think out of the box whenever they experience problems or circumstances in their lives (Elikai & Schuhmann, 2010).
In addition, the structure of grading systems has an impact on the quality of students’
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The results of student’s performance in the classroom are grades. The grades greatly affect students’ perception to things. It can result to something negative or positive. Ellis (2009) explained that grades often affect student’s perception about learning. Grades diminish students’ interest in learning. When there is a basis of learning, students prefer easier task because they want to get good grades. Often, students only study to get good grades and not to learn. They tend to memorize everything and after a test, forget everything they learned. To support Ellis’ statement, Crouch (2013) said that grades are poor communicators. The variability of grades is not always realistic. Some grades are created to assess students’ academic performance but not their intellectual intelligence. In contrary, grades help to improve one’s self. When a student gets a failing grade, this might trigger them to study harder and broaden their minds in the possibilities in the area of knowledge.
Moreover, grades of students have the psychological result of grades to students. Parikh defined grades as a basis of intellectual capacity of students in the classroom. It can improve a student’s emotional state and/or break his confidence. In some cases, grades are determinants of a student’s superiority inside the classroom. Some students think they are better than others because they have higher grades than them. This scenario causes
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The grades in major subjects of A4A and A4B students can be considered average. 4. There are no significant differences on the average grades of A4A and A4B students considering gender as a variable.
METHODS
This chapter discussed the type of research design used, the place where the study is conducted, and the respondents of the study, the tools used to gather data, how the data and information are collected, and presentation of the comparison of data. The main inquiry of this study was to know the effects of zero-based grading system to the academic performance of A4A and A4B students of De La Salle Lipa. In order to assess the effects, the researchers used descriptive method. Descriptive method was used to describe specific behavior that occurs in the environment. It involves three main categories: observation, case studies, and surveys. The study was conducted at around De La Salle Lipa, the researchers’ school. It was conducted in the researchers’ school to easily approach the respondents regarding the survey. There was a limited time for the research and the researcher’s schedule is not flexible for the researcher to conduct survey outside the
In her article, “The Case Against GRADES”, Alfie Kohn discusses the grading system and its faults. She opens her argument with information from an older psychological study that proves the negative impact of the current grading system, and she reinforces this with the proof that “no” research has contradicted this statement. Also, she gives many key reasons including: “Motivation”, “Achievement”, “Quantification”, and “Curriculum”. Kohn supports these topics with other reasearch for why the system is failing the students. She asserts that, “… the absence of grading is a necessary condition for promoting deep thinking and a desire to engage in it.” As support, she offers other solutions and then debunks them by proving that they would not solve
Ultimately, by these students tieing their self image to getting the highest possible grade it can lead them to some serious Problems, the students not learning to their full potential, and negatively affect their career. Grades play a role in education but grades should not define a student like it does today.
The author was a freshman at Princeton University when this article was written. He seems to have enough drive and determination in order to embrace grade deflation compared to his peers, who complained and disagreed with the grading system, which is what started this essay.
I have always valued school and enlarging my intelligence; I receive a sense of pride from earning a decent grade on a paper or on a particular assignment. Alfie Kohn wrote an essay titled “From Degrading to De-grading”; in it he suggests a different view on the current education system. Even though students expect marks and even seem dependent on them, grading should spur on a love of studying not deter it. Grades tend to reduce a student’s inclination for stimulating tasks, and lessen students’ interest in erudition.
Grades do motivate students to do better but, grades cause students to want to get a good grade instead of fully mastering the material. They look at school just trying to pass which promotes cheating on tests and homework. They also will choose the material that is the easiest and choose a class with a professor who doesn’t care to raise their GPA. School is supposed to be about learning and understanding new material to help gain knowledge and a new way of thinking.
Before we can look at how grading affects learning Farber suggests we look at how it has affected students (333-334). The greatest effect of being graded happens to the individual. Farber asks, “Did you need grades to learn how to drive?” We have become “grade junkies.” Without the grades students can’t learn (333). Vogel agrees that students believe grades are the motivating factor in learning, but only for the money. Students want the grades because high GPA’s equal high paying jobs (338-339). Another negative effect of grades is that students want the best grade with the least amount of learning but this causes conflict with professors because the professor’s goal is different compared to the student’s (339). Grades have positive effects too. Farber believes that grades give us discipline, but not self-discipline. True self-discipline comes from wanting something not coercion (334). Farber defines self-discipline as revising one paragraph all night because one enjoys it (334.)
higher than previously assigned for given levels of achievement.” This means that grades are designed to recognize various levels of success, making them an important aspect of the education system in countries across the globe. They help determine not only where students are accepted, but help students earn scholarship dollars to aid students in paying for their education. However, there has been a rapid increase in the amount of A’s awarded to students in America to help those trying to get into and pay for college rather than earning A’s for the content of their work. There is a huge difference between the number of A’s given to students in America and
Zellner, Kathleen M. "An Examination of Grade Distribution Patterns and Grade Inflation at a Baccalaureate Nursing Program." ProQuest. UMI Microform, May 2008. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.
Seeing this, the ability of grades to influence and create positive and negative roles to students remains to be the responsibility of the educator. Given that grades help manifest a standard for students to adhere to, teachers must try to create an environment where they can facilitate and motivate students to do better (Tomlinson, 2001). By using grades as an instrument for development, it can create a positive perception for students to improve and seek connections with instruction and course content.
What happens when students hear this new mode of grading and stop trying? What is the challenge of going to school and working hard, if they do not have to make sure they get all of their school work done to pass? Teachers will not need to try so hard to get their lecture through to their audience. Although allowing the no zero rule helps children in many ways, it hurts them in more ways. In society there are no grading scales, no one is going to give these young students an easy pass. If they cannot do what they are supposed to do in their career, then they will fail. These students need to understand the meaning of working hard to achieve in school, so they understand what it will be like with a job, or family. Most jobs run on a pass or fail scale. It is easy to think that changing the grading scale is what the students need, and that this will give parents what they are looking for to stop the children from dropping out of
Teachers have always used grades to measure the amount a student has learned. This practice is becoming ineffective. Many students have a wide range of grades, which show that grades may not show what a student really knows. Therefore, the standard grading system should be replaced. Some reasons why grades should be replaced are bad grades can hinder a child’s performance, grades define who a student is in the classroom, and grades are not an effective way to see if students have learned the material. The current grading system should be upgraded and every school should incorporate the plus/minus system in their method of grading.
When students have easier grading criteria, it increases their ability to learn the material instead of focusing on earning better grades without understanding the material. Students sometimes need grading criteria that will allow them to focus on their studying more than focusing on how they will be able to pass their classes with good grades that will not affect their GPA’s. For example, I have taken many classes throughout my college career such as Psychology, Philosophy, and Statistics, some of them I need as major requirements. I took the classes and I have no idea until this moment what I have learned in those classes. As said, I have learned the material for these classes to pass the exams, and forget what I have learned the day after the exam. In this case, I do not blame myself that I have not learned the material as I have to, because I learned it to pass the class with a good grade instead of passing the class with the
By nature, most students are brought up in an academic environment motivated to get A’s and B’s on their report cards. Those grades sometimes don’t thoroughly report how much a student has learned or gained knowledge in each topic. Some instructors throw in factors totally unrelated to learning, when the main objective of academic institutions is to learn. In order to clearly demonstrate how much a student has learned in the classroom, schools should change their current grading system and teach students how to learn.
Balancing the characteristics of a good student will not only lift them out of the average student range in some of their classes, but it will also carry on through his or her adult life making a job or a career even better. Becoming an excellent student early on in one 's lifetime is the best way to learn the discipline needed because it 's something that will be pushed onto the student by the parents very young, rather than trying to teach oneself self discipline. Defining a student by their grades is not a good way to understand the student and how they are learning but watching the choices that they make in academics is the key to defining who has what it takes to proclaim the good student
This chapter describes the overall research methodology of the study. It states the choice of and arguments for selecting the research methods and strategies for the study. The chapter presents the working definition of the key terms, population, research area, and other related issues. It also presents the statistical tools and techniques that are used in the data analysis and presentation. The validity and reliability of the research method employed in the study are exhibited. The key concepts and variables used in the thesis and the measures used to operationalize these concepts and variables are discussed in detail.