This is an interesting debate - but so far it has been UK centric - understandably so since most of the members of this list are in the UK. It wasn't until I moved to Canada that I discovered that not all degrees are graded in the same way. I have removed my class of degree from my CV because colleagues have no idea what a 2.i means (not sure they would understand a 'first' either, but I didn't get one so can't find out!). Degrees are not classified here, they are awarded with or without honours, but students also have a transcript which is used if classification matters - for professional courses, masters, doctorates etc. Isn't there some debate in the UK as to whether or not to keep the class system for degrees, given that UK students also get a transcript?

The other big difference is the range of grades used - the allocation of grades it is still arbitrary in my mind, since not everyone uses a rubric and most people don't seem to have heard of second or blind marking, but the range is wider. Or at least the top end of the range is wider but the lower end is not used at all. For example for a masters course this is the grading scale:
0 - 59% F, 60 to 69% C, 70 to 74% B, 75 - 79% B+, 80 to 84% A-, 85 to 89 A, 90 to 100% A+
With so much emphasis on the top end of the scale one might think students would be happy with a B or B+  but no, that is not the case. Most students are anxious and keen to negotiate if they get anything less than a straight A.

Sorry if this is somewhat divergent from the original post but I thought I'd share as I find it fascinating....

Celia


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From:        Peter Hartley <[log in to unmask]>
To:        [log in to unmask],
Date:        03/06/2017 07:33 AM
Subject:        Re: Categorical Marking
Sent by:        "Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association" <[log in to unmask]>




I would also join the argument in favour of a grading system - after all we do end up sorting students into grades (the typical pass/merit/distinction at PG and the degree classes for UG) so why not focus on that throughout the course?

It might also resolve an issue which I think is implicit in the first comments from Stephen and John. Stephen mentioned “the full 100% mark range” and John talked of the “full range of scores from 0 to 100”. There are a few assumptions in there which I would challenge. For a starter it assumes that marks behave like numbers and I have issues with that (happy to expand on that if folk are interested).  But for this discussion I would like to query the notion of the range of marks.

Until fairly recently the actual range of marks used by examiners was something like 30-80. Anything less than 30 was complete disaster; you usually had to have an argument with external examiners to award anything over 80. Going further back in time (which unfortunately I am able to do with starting clarity) anything over 75 was regarded as ‘too generous’. And where did this scale come from in the first place?

Focusing just on UG for the moment, why is there a 30-point scale for First Class students and only a 10-point scale for everyone else?
In a system which often uses average marks to determine final grade then doesn’t this give these students an ‘unfair' advantage?
For example, if a student can earn 90% for a 20-point module then they have boosted their overall average for the year by a couple of percent compared with that same student being marked according to previous conventions - and a couple of percent can often mean a difference in degree classification.
And doesn’t this almost guarantee some amount of grade inflation?

So I think that grades deserve much more use (and investigation as Rachel suggests) alongside other ways of escaping from the problems of numerical marking, such as the work on programme-focused assessment which benefited from the contributions of Chris and colleagues (http://www.pass.brad.ac.uk ).

Best wishes
Peter




On 6 Mar 2017, at 11:55, Rachel Forsyth <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Completely agree with Chris (as ever) - four pass grades would be great. Here it is not compulsory, but we use it on our own PGC LTHE and I much prefer it. It’s stepped, or step marking here, and we offer this guidance http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/assessment/lifecycle/5_step_marking.php - we couldn’t find any studies on this either. What would you look at, if there were a study? Student and staff satisfaction with a reduced range of grades?
 
Rachel
 
From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chris Rust
Sent: 06 March 2017 11:05
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Categorical Marking
 
John
 
In my view this is a half-way house to dealing with assessment problems/issues that doesn’t go far enough and essentially fudges the issue.  Much better to do away with the use of numbers altogether because of the baggage they bring and to use grades instead.  You also need to reduce the number of assessment choices to something sensible in terms of granularity.  At Brookes, before I retired and the project was shelved, we were moving to a grade based marking system (see attached) based on Biggs SOLO taxonomy with 4/8 pass grades.
 
Best wishes
Chris
 
Chris Rust
Professor Emeritus
Oxford Brookes University
 
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