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Task force examines grade inflation

A Faculty Council task force has issued a report that calls for each academic unit to determine whether grade inflation may be occurring in its instructors' undergraduate classes.

The report of the Task Force on Grading Standards, issued at the council's April 20 meeting, comes in light of data showing that average grades for Carolina undergraduate students have been gradually increasing over the past few decades. In Spring 1999, the grade point average was 3.0; in Fall 1987 it was 2.7. And going back to the fall of 1967, it was 2.39.

The task force said that no single factor can be pointed to as the cause of the increase in grade point averages. Contributing factors likely include students taking longer to graduate and therefore having more time to focus on lighter class loads each semester, more students dropping classes in which they might get a poor grade and instructors moving away from lecture-style teaching to more effective "active learning" approaches.

And students may be better prepared, as well -- SAT scores for incoming freshmen have risen dramatically over the last two decades, even when accounting for adjustments made to the SAT scale, the task force noted.

But the task force said "it is possible that there may be isolated instances of where an individual instructor exaggerates the quality of a student's work in grading." Following the lead of the Faculty Council's Educational Policy Committee, the task force recommends these meanings for grades:

* A -- Outstanding mastery of course material.

* B -- Superior mastery of course material.

* C -- Adequate mastery of course material.

* D -- Mastery of course material that is unsatisfactory or poor.

F -- Unsatisfactory mastery of course material.

And because only each academic unit knows the nature of its instruction and its pedagogical goals, the task force calls for individual units to determine whether any exaggerations in grading are taking place.

Part of that process should include the faculty within each unit meeting formally to review grading practices with the goal being "to arrive at a consensus within the unit about what constitutes conformity" with the grading standards as outlined by the Educational Policy Committee.

"Within individual units, discussions of grading practices can lead to more consistency and greater attention to the importance of fair and well-defined grading standards," the task force said.

Along with the review meeting, the task force recommends that unit heads conduct annual reviews of individual faculty members' grading patterns. Faculty experiencing difficulty in grading should be referred to the Center for Teaching and Learning on campus.

Some Faculty Council members questioned whether such reviews should be carried out annually.

Vincas Steponaitis, an anthropology professor, said that periodic reviews might be more effective and wondered why anyone who has demonstrated teaching prowess -- such as a teaching award winner -- would need to be reviewed each year.

And Philip Bromberg, professor of medicine, questioned whether reviews should be done at all, given the pressure faculty members can already find themselves under to give good grades.

"It's too intrusive," he said.

The recommendations in the Task Force on Grading Standards' report will be taken up by the Faculty Council in the fall in the form of a resolution, meaning that the council will decide then whether they will become policy. A review of the Educational Policy Committee's criteria for grades -- based on definitions adopted by the University in 1976 -- is expected to be a part of those deliberations.

Regardless of what happens in the fall, Beverly Long, task force chair, said the council's discussions will have helped raise awareness on campus about the importance of grading standards.

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