Grading System in schools: To curve or to not curve grades

[Zamix]

I am a 20 year old college Junior at La Salle University located in Philadelphia, PA. I am proud of my education and I am glad to have achieved and have been privileged the opportunity to pursue a college degree.

Something I've noticed over my 2 and a half years in college is the Grading System, which I first really wanted to discuss openly with my immediate family.

As the typical grading system is at a liberal arts school, we have a 4.0 scale to measure GPAs, and you are given credit hours for completing your courses and you get such and such points depending on what grade you received and the average is your GPA. Overall the standard stuff doesn't matter but instead its when you go into the classroom and see how the teacher works the grade book.

To curve grades or to not curve grades? That is the question (from my point of view) many teachers are faced with (mostly during exam periods).
Let me be the first to hold everything just one bit....

Why even curve grades to begin with?

Many will say that a vast majority of the class didn't do so well on the exam and thus it falls on the teacher to instinctively not fail everyone and therefore give a curve. Or some will say its because the teacher didn't do a good enough job, but then what happened to students not comprehending the material? Shouldn't they have asked questions....but then the counter still boils down to lazy teaching.


So are curves given because most of the class didn't preform well on an exam due to the teacher not doing their job correctly? This is a likely possibility.
or...
Are curves just made to make tests easier to pass? Not everyone is a strong test taker so curves can make up for that. For example my Economics professor curves the exams 5 points because the entire exam is multiple choice and due to that nature students may make a mistake due to not reading the question right.


Curves are nice in that the student gets a boost to their grade, but what really gets taken away is the accomplishment of getting an A or a B.
Assume a student got a 78 on a test and the curve is the same 5 points as my professor, the student (who would've gotten a C+) now walks away with a B (83). Or maybe the student with an 88 now has a 93 or an A, but in actuality they deserve a B+.

Curves get taken WAY out of hand. The whole reason I am writing this thread is because of one class in particular that I am taking. "Database Systems and Management".
I recently had a mid-term exam and I scored an 80 so a B- not bad. The highest score in the class was a 96 and the lowest score in the class was a 21...... These scores are out of 100 points, and no curve given....yet.

My teacher gave out a whooping 20 point curve! 20 points so the person with a 21 still fails the exam with a flying 41.....and the 96 now gets and overkill 116. I walk away with a 100 on my exam. Needless to say I have a bad taste in my mouth as I walk away with a "perfect score" for only getting a B-. I realize that an 80 is good but there is 20 points worth of improvement I can make and I can do that, but to have the 20 points just handed out like that is a real achievement downer.
Still I would be a fool not to just accept free money right? Even if I did nothing to earn it.

Think of it like this a real grade of 70 (C-) which would be considered an Average grade would get you a 90 (A-) which is an Excellent grade.

Is this an example of curves being taken too far?

TLDR:

How do you feel about teachers curving grades?
Do you feel less accomplished when you receive a grade that you only partially earned?
How or when are curves taken too far?
What impact does this have on the student and teacher?

[Judge Malthred]

No curves.

It is the responsibility of the student to learn the material, it is why you are there. If that means asking more questions, or reporting a lazy teach, it falls on the student. If you want to go to college and breeze through it a sub-par attitude and waste your money then that is on you. You get what you put into it.

[Pyrelight]

Generally, I think curves should just be used to "unfail" people who were close to getting a pass, for example, if you are 2 points from getting a pass on a class that you will never bother taking again because it's completely irrelevant to your major, then I have no problems with it. Otherwise I agree with you.

Getting an A used to mean something. It made you stand out as a truly excellent student. Now it's just "eh, not bad" like what Bs and Cs used to be. It all makes sense though: some As ARE INDEED Bs and Cs. We should be lenient with students for the purpose that they don't spend money and time on courses they don't need or don't care in the beginning, but penalizing those who work hard by trivializing their accomplishments is hardly the way to do it.

[Purlina]

Curving should be done so that all grades remain relative and that the average grade is a C.

Basically:

A = Top 10 % of the class
B = Above average
C = Average
D = Below Average

[Dashield28]

How about you stop worrying about your grade and start worrying about how much you actually know.

I've seen resumes (I hire for my team, IT related) that boasted of 3.8 4.0 GPA, I asked them a simple question about problem resulotion or conflict of interest or even cuztomer support and they are dumber than a bag of door knobs.

Grades mean jack and shit in the real world. Jack left town.

[Acewipe]

Curves are stupid- make the student earn the grade- although I did have a couple of classes that curved down (i.e., the professor refused to give more than 5% of the class an A no matter what- so my 96% ended up being an A-)

[Adam Jensen]

My biology teacher curved grades.

What he'd do is he'd take the difference between the highest test grade a student earned and the maximum possible number of points and add that to all the tests. So if the highest grade was a 98, he'd add two points.

One day, I got a 100.

Everyone was pissed at me.

[darkwarrior42]

Curving should be done so that all grades remain relative and that the average grade is a C.

Basically:

A = Top 10 % of the class
B = Above average
C = Average
D = Below Average

I agree with this completely, for any subject that is at all subjective or requires you to demonstrate understanding of things that are not purely factual. For pure science or computer courses where there is no debate whatsoever, I oppose any form of curve.

Examples of courses where I like the curves: Literature courses; philosophy courses; high-end physics or chemistry courses dealing with theorems that have not yet been proven or disproven; art courses where your content/creativity/composition is in question; business classes dealing with management theory, or other aspects of human relations that are not always set in stone; any other course where you can make an argument for your answer, based on interpretation of the available circumstances.

Examples of courses where I oppose curves: pure math, computer, or low-mid physics/chem courses where the facts are well understood and simply need to be mastered; math/science/computer courses dealing with well understood concepts that simply need to be mastered; art/drawing/graphics courses focused on teaching technique rather than on helping you grow as an artist ("here are some techniques you can use to create the illusion of perspective"); business courses focusing on existing economic theorems; mastery of a foreign language; any other course where the facts are not disputed and you can be easily and statistically graded based on your ability to grasp these facts.

(Part of the reason I like curves in subjective classes is that many professors have a hard time separating personal bias/opinion while grading, and the curve can help compensate for their bias; hopefully, bias can't affect your grade in a math course, where you either do the work properly or you don't.)

[MadMiller20]

That type of grading is a bell curve grading system. It distributes the grades evenly above an average and below. If the grades were graphed, they would look like a bell. I have no problem with this because it prevents people from failing but, it will not give students good grades who don't deserve them. A curve that is created by simply adding points is uneffective and, if your students rely on this to pass, it can cause some serious problems. There are both pros and cons to curves but, I think that in the end, it encourages students to not try as hard as they would otherwise. However, I always find it frustrating when a teacher won't bump you up when you are .1-.9 away from a higher grade.

[Firemist]

How about you stop worrying about your grade and start worrying about how much you actually know.

I've seen resumes (I hire for my team, IT related) that boasted of 3.8 4.0 GPA, I asked them a simple question about problem resulotion or conflict of interest or even cuztomer support and they are dumber than a bag of door knobs.

Grades mean jack and shit in the real world. Jack left town.

You know... the OP addressing the issues of grade curves applies to exactly what you are talking about... people getting unfair or unearned high grades/GPA's because of curves...

So if people were able to solve the 'curve' problem... someone with a 3.8 would actually know the answer to your question because that means they knew the material to the exams... maybe next time add valid input to the OP and not just be high and mighty?

[Purlina]

You know... the OP addressing the issues of grade curves applies to exactly what you are talking about... people getting unfair or unearned high grades/GPA's because of curves...

So if people were able to solve the 'curve' problem... someone with a 3.8 would actually know the answer to your question because that means they knew the material to the exams... maybe next time add valid input to the OP and not just be high and mighty?

Well some professors may give harder exams then others. So a 3.8 in professor A's class may mean less then a 3.8 in professor B's class.

A curve somewhat balances this aspect of things.

[Frozenbeef]

uk uni grading is rather silly it's like 40% pass and 70%+ is the best possible grade you can get with only 1 or 2 students getting above 80...

so you have a window of 30% between people people scraping a pass and people with the best >.<

[sarahfireworks]

I'm not sure if curving or not was ever that big of an issue to me. The important thing was to walk away with an understanding of the material, and be able to apply that understanding elsewhere. Something about how if I was paying for an education I wanted to actually make sure I was getting a good value for my money, and learning as much as I could.

Certainly you have a reason to be concerned if you feel the teacher isn't doing a good job and is just curving to compensate for it. But if you're being challenged and they're doing a good job of teaching you the material does it even that important whether or not you walk away with a 75% or a 85%? I mean I imagine if you're trying to get into a graduate program or something that could be a setback, but IMO it'll just catch up with you later if you haven't learned what you should have; no matter what grade you get. :S

[Collegeguy]

Curves need to exist because of bad teachers. I have seen many teachers who just don't teach. If they didn't curve, everyone would fail the course. Not allowing curves wouldn't improve anything.

[asher1611]

I used to be a teacher, and what I would do is normalize grades. I would throw assessments at students knowing that the best and brightest of my students may only get 80% correct. But once you get all the data points together, even with just 30-80 students, there's a good enough distribution to look at how people did on the assessment and see where they fall in the pecking order.

And I wouldn't normalize on a C curve or C scale either. It varied depending on the distribution of the data. If a lot of the students did worse than I thought they should, I wouldn't hold back on them.

So in layman's terms, sometimes my curve would appear to be something like 30-40%. Other times, it would appear to be only 5-10. It just depend on the assignment, but I promise you my students could barely grasp the method to my grading after getting curved/extra credit 150 averages (AVERAGES! OUT OF 100) for the quarter or semester in other classes.

I got in trouble with the Administration for failing 1/2 of my juniors one quarter. They were down my neck because I was going to single handedly be responsible for making the school not make AYP. My response was: "So I'm supposed to reward them for not turning in their work? For not doing assignments I give them class time to do? For straight copying from wikipedia, often leaving the hyperlinks intact?"

Needless to say, I was forced out of that job within a year.

edit: I also approve of Firemist's message above. Due to real life calamaties, I ended up in the middle of my class upon graduating after going back to school post teaching. I'm doing better than some of my far smarter classmates largely because there's a difference between being book smart and actually being able to use your brain.

[edanna]

I am a 20 year old college Junior at La Salle University located in Philadelphia, PA. I am proud of my education and I am glad to have achieved and have been privileged the opportunity to pursue a college degree.

Something I've noticed over my 2 and a half years in college is the Grading System, which I first really wanted to discuss openly with my immediate family.

As the typical grading system is at a liberal arts school, we have a 4.0 scale to measure GPAs, and you are given credit hours for completing your courses and you get such and such points depending on what grade you received and the average is your GPA. Overall the standard stuff doesn't matter but instead its when you go into the classroom and see how the teacher works the grade book.

To curve grades or to not curve grades? That is the question (from my point of view) many teachers are faced with (mostly during exam periods).
Let me be the first to hold everything just one bit....

Why even curve grades to begin with?

Many will say that a vast majority of the class didn't do so well on the exam and thus it falls on the teacher to instinctively not fail everyone and therefore give a curve. Or some will say its because the teacher didn't do a good enough job, but then what happened to students not comprehending the material? Shouldn't they have asked questions....but then the counter still boils down to lazy teaching.


So are curves given because most of the class didn't preform well on an exam due to the teacher not doing their job correctly? This is a likely possibility.
or...
Are curves just made to make tests easier to pass? Not everyone is a strong test taker so curves can make up for that. For example my Economics professor curves the exams 5 points because the entire exam is multiple choice and due to that nature students may make a mistake due to not reading the question right.


Curves are nice in that the student gets a boost to their grade, but what really gets taken away is the accomplishment of getting an A or a B.
Assume a student got a 78 on a test and the curve is the same 5 points as my professor, the student (who would've gotten a C+) now walks away with a B (83). Or maybe the student with an 88 now has a 93 or an A, but in actuality they deserve a B+.

Curves get taken WAY out of hand. The whole reason I am writing this thread is because of one class in particular that I am taking. "Database Systems and Management".
I recently had a mid-term exam and I scored an 80 so a B- not bad. The highest score in the class was a 96 and the lowest score in the class was a 21...... These scores are out of 100 points, and no curve given....yet.

My teacher gave out a whooping 20 point curve! 20 points so the person with a 21 still fails the exam with a flying 41.....and the 96 now gets and overkill 116. I walk away with a 100 on my exam. Needless to say I have a bad taste in my mouth as I walk away with a "perfect score" for only getting a B-. I realize that an 80 is good but there is 20 points worth of improvement I can make and I can do that, but to have the 20 points just handed out like that is a real achievement downer.
Still I would be a fool not to just accept free money right? Even if I did nothing to earn it.

Think of it like this a real grade of 70 (C-) which would be considered an Average grade would get you a 90 (A-) which is an Excellent grade.

Is this an example of curves being taken too far?

TLDR:

How do you feel about teachers curving grades?
Do you feel less accomplished when you receive a grade that you only partially earned?
How or when are curves taken too far?
What impact does this have on the student and teacher?

Ironic I live in Philly too

OT: I feel that teachers should be allowed to curve them to a certain amt not like 30%

[sarahfireworks]

Ironic I live in Philly too

OT: I feel that teachers should be allowed to curve them to a certain amt not like 30%

Hmmm on that topic, I had a chemistry teacher that tended to make her classes super hard. As in the best in the class would walk away with like 60% on a test. She'd curve at the end of the year so that the majority of people would pass. It was a bit scary, but a surprisingly good motivator.

[Rakeer]

having your mark affected by others is a stupid thing and only functions as a comparison. If you are a smart amongst geniuses, well then you seem really fricken stupid. if you are unintellgent surrounded by brain dead people-rocks. then you look like a genius.

a second read suggests your curve works different from mine. does your professors just give you an extra 5% (or whatever the amount may be)? or is it something more like top 10% gets A, next 15% gets B so on so forth? cause if its just giving free marks then thats just.....pathetic >.>

either way, no to both.

[Palliente]

Curving should be done so that all grades remain relative and that the average grade is a C.

Basically:

A = Top 10 % of the class
B = Above average
C = Average
D = Below Average

No way.

There are a few words that come after "average" and "above average".

Those words are "...understanding of the material".

That means an A is "excellent understanding of the material" and B is "above average understanding of the material".

It's not "excellent understanding of the material when compared to the rest of the class".




I can understand teachers throwing out a question on a test because it was unclear, or even giving everyone credit for getting that question right.

Giving someone an A when they scored 70/100 on a test is not fair to the student, the student's future employers, or anybody else involved.

---------- Post added 2012-02-29 at 08:09 PM ----------

Curves need to exist because of bad teachers. I have seen many teachers who just don't teach. If they didn't curve, everyone would fail the course. Not allowing curves wouldn't improve anything.

It wouldn't take long of everybody failing a particular teacher's class before that teacher would be investigated.

So instead of going after the problem, curving just hides the problem.

[Deleted]

No way grading on a curve is a good idea... In both extreme situations (pre-meds hunting GPA or class full of lazy asses).

There should be strictly declared what knowledge you need for what grade and you shouldn't depend on others.