Grade Inflation: Rescuing Students from Unrealistic Expectations

Grade inflation has been a drag on the quality of education for sometime and sets students up for future failure. The artificial, and often accidental, inflation of grades persists and doesn’t appear to have an immediate resolution. Professors feel pressure to continue providing high grades despite its long-term damage to the student, the university, and future employers. Looking out for students requires holding the line on grade pressure.

Its easy to give high grades when the benefits significantly outweigh the costs of holding students accountable for learning. Professors mentioned that grade inflation is a result of poor student evaluations, poor student-teacher relationships, financial aid requirements, and excessively high student expectations (Caruth & Caruth, 2013). Giving accurate grades comes with internal and external pressure to lower the standards.

On the first day, students walk/ log into a class with preconceived expectations of what grade they should have regardless of their actual performance. Based upon studies of undergraduate and graduate students the average undergraduate student expects a B- while graduate students expect a B+ (Schwartz, 2009). This expectation sometimes leads to disappointment and anger if they do not get what they thought they should.

Perception vs. Market Performance

One problem with giving into student demands is that eventually reality will hit the student in ways they don’t foresee. At some point, they will need to show their mastery of the material and will experience serious disappointment from job loss, lack of forthcoming opportunities, and inability to overcome challenges. Today’s false perception of their performance can lead to serious job market consequences tomorrow.

An employer may consider the merits of hiring a student on the honor roll but will become disappointed with the value of the degree if the student has lower performance than expected. The problem of high grades with low performance becomes a detriment that can take students years to figure out once they reflect on their failures. The costs to the employer and the student can be substantial.

Reserving the Independence of Faculty

There is no doubt there are good and bad faculty. Faculty should be held accountable when they are miserably not engaged in the educational process but should not be held accountable for student misperceptions of grades. Faculty evaluations should have only a limited amount of performance influence as they can at times be conduits to express anger stemming from disappointment than an actual reflection of teaching quality.

Peer reviews should weigh higher on these evaluations as they offer a better reflection of performance. This doesn’t mean that student evaluations are not important but that they sometimes don’t reflect accurately the job that high performing professors are doing. Peer reviews offer a method of seeing if the professor is actively engaged in the learning process from the perspective of people with industry knowledge.

It is better to use a battery of measurements that include peer reviews, student evaluations, basic class metrics (i.e. postings, engagement, etc...), and quality of content to evaluate professors. If the goal is to create more accurate assessments than a well-rounded report with multiple measurements may get a better total picture. Each university will need to determine if that "accurate picture" is worth the time and cost.

Setting the Tone Right From the First Day

Universities should stand by their commitment to high quality learning to create relevance in the modern market which will be the truest judge of performance. Student disappointment is often a result of misperceptions fed by grade inflating, misinterpretation of the value of grades, and the overall academic culture. Students should consistently be told they need to earn their grades and must challenge their existing assumptions to move to higher states of adaptive learning.

Forcing students to reach higher levels of performance should be a fundamental goal. A’s should be difficult to obtain and a valid measure of actual performance. The average student should be in the C and B range with areas of improvement apparent. Continually pushing students to get better may create frustration but often leads to higher long-term performance. If the student see where they can improve it is up to the professor to show them. Rescuing students from drowning themselves in the misperceptions of what is needed to be successful in life may be one of the most valuable higher education lessons.

Caruth, D. & Caruth, G. (2013). Grade inflation: an issue for higher education? Journal of Distance Education, 14 (1).

Schwartz, D. (2009). The impact of more rigorous grading on instructor evaluations: a longitudinal study, 2 (1). 

Streets of Gold or Pathways to Poverty: Reviving America's Cities

Streets of gold look a little more like pathways to poverty. American cities have been on the decline for decades as investments diverted from urban areas to emerging countries that rolled out the red carpet. The infrastructure that was built when American cities were at the height of their economic might is still mostly intact waiting for visionary investors. Getting investment interest and better city governance can lead to mutual growth for business and job-hungry residents if the two can come to a mutual understanding.

Pick any major city in the country and follow its historic rise and fall. You may notice that as people moved to the city, built homes, and invested their resources these collections of people grew in wealth and influence. The collective action of small and large investors created a synergy of growth that pushed profit margins to higher levels. Money, government, and people had a mutual self-interest in development.

As international competition rose, technology changed, and poor government policy stagnated these cities; they became ghost lands that are a pale comparison to their previous glory. Where opportunity flourished a few decades ago, some cities have grown dilapidated virtual prisons. The poorer a family was, the more likely they were stuck in a cycle of poverty. American men, women, and children were left behind.

Bleakness doesn’t need to be the norm. Cities that still retain their basic infrastructure are ripe for renewed development that not only produces higher returns on investment (ROI) but offers new opportunities for residents. When opportunity grows, hope also grows, and new economic life is born with it. The marriage of investors and government  into pro-growth policies can nurse new opportunities.

Consider the mass investment draws to places like Eastern Europe, India, China, and other emerging nations where red tape restrictions are little but returns are high. American cities offer many of these same opportunities as the low cost of buildings, motivated work force, and reliable infrastructure found in combinations will grow once the right capital levers are applied.

Stakeholders will need to look at the global market and existing local competencies to determine where the best investment growth potential can be realized. When capitalists engage in pack investments and create spawning clusters of business activities to capitalize on existing competencies and infrastructure, growth is not far over the horizon. Economic wastelands can become investment wonderlands with a little good old fashion spit shine.

Many proposals such as new recreation centers, additional funding, tax allocations, etc...have been tried at one time or another. They were short-lived because they were not profitable and often came with long-term commitments with difficult to measure results. Building investment hubs fixes the foundations of poverty that lead to better housing, additional tax bases, better education and more community support.

The problem isn’t so much that investors are not willing to invest in these cities but that awareness is lacking, and local government is often short-sighted in their policy development that inadvertently restricts future opportunities. Revamping the way we think about investments, government, and education/training helps to ensure that struggling cities look more like diamonds in the rough. Enlightened government starts where partisan politics ends.

Using Validity and Critical Thinking On a Daily Basis

On a daily basis, we hear claims of how this product leads to weight loss, how we should support someone’s awe-inspiring cause, and where we should be spending our time. Invalid arguments are familiar and knowing how to determine whether or not an argument is truthful can help us make choices that lead to better outcomes.

Life is full of people who want you to buy something, sell something, get on a team, and convert to their cause. The list of invalid arguments are nearly endless. Most of us come across inaccurate and invalid arguments that are designed to stir our emotions but have little substance. Knowing valid from invalid arguments helps us see the truth behind the words.

An argument is valid if the premises are true, and the conclusion is not false. Main points should lead to and support the conclusion. In situations where the premises are true but the conclusion is false then the argument is invalid. The premise and the conclusion should hold true.

Even though logic and life may seem different, one leads to the quality of the other. Good choices offer greater outcomes. It is beneficial to try and find your way through arguments by using critical thinking and searching out counter arguments. If you can select counter arguments, the argument becomes open to questioning and more likely invalid.

You can see an example of a statement from a shifty used cars salesman:

“This is a great car because its style is modern. You seem like a guy with great taste, and if you buy this car you are going to be popular as well”.

While it might be true that buying this car is popular and could make you more popular there are many circumstances where this does not hold true. Perhaps you have a great sense of style and decide to buy the car but don’t want your friends to ride in it. If your friends can’t get a ride, they may not like you very much. Maybe the car is in style for people in your grandmother's age group.

The point being that popularity rests only in part on the type of car you drive and more heavily influenced by personality, style, and other issues that make one desirable. The car in and of itself won’t make you the most popular person in town.

It may have been more accurate for the salesperson to say, “This car has sold more models than any other car in the country. You seem to be a guy who cares about his social image. If you buy this car, it will make a statement about who you are.”

This statement is more accurate as the facts about the popularity can be checked with sales numbers. Likewise, research has backed the idea that when we buy a product we are saying a little bit about ourselves. Many of purchase choices are a direct reflection of our personality. The second argument makes it through the "smell" test.

Validity of arguments should maintain a level of internal consistency that helps us know that the premises justify the conclusion. Searching out alternative explanations helps us get a better grasp of what is going on. Flattery with emotionally driven words is not the same as having a logical argument with internal consistency.

Using your logic, reasoning, and fact checking ability, you will be less prone to the false statements that have become part of our lives. Whether it be advertising, a request for a donation, purchasing a car or political support for an idea it is important for you to use your critical thinking skills. It will help you make more accurate conclusions and decisions that lead to advantageous behavior that helps you fulfill your goals.

Drop Out Rates: Should Traditional and Online Schools Have Their Own Rates?

Dropout rates are a primary concern for universities and governments that want to create accountability in higher education. How dropout rates are defined has a large impact on the future success of schools and may influence those that will be around in the future. Some have argued that the timetables and lack of understanding put online schools at a disadvantage under definitions more in tune with the needs of traditional schools.

How Drop Out Rates are Defined

The way in which dropout rates are set can make a large difference in the final rate. For example, if a dropout rate is by course level it will have one value while if it is calculated over a year, or two years, will have another. If calculated over longer periods of times the rates may capture students who bounce in and out of classes but have not given up on their education. When a student drops is confusing.

The government requires the numbers to be calculated each year. These numbers create a rate that is compared with other universities to determine the schools' value. What they don't compare is the background and demographics of the students attending different types of schools and it impacts short-term retention. Some students don't have the full freedom or support to attend college all the way throughout without working.

Different Numbers for Online and Traditional Universities

A study conducted in Spain found that dropout rates would better reflect what is going on if there were a separate definition for online universities (Grau-Valldosera& Minguillon, J. (2014). They believe that the online method of learning is very different from brick-n-mortar institutions and having the same definition doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Students in the online world come from a different background that makes the virtual educational process different than traditional universities. Trying to force online schools into brick-n-mortar models is unfair. As traditional schools move more into online education, they may find similar inaccuracies in reporting.

Online Students are Unique

Students in the online world are more transient and will sometimes attend a few classes and then disappear for a couple of classes before returning. The measurement should be different as those engaged in traditional schooling may never return to an institution once they leave as larger barriers to reentry exist.

There is also another problem related to the preparedness of students. Up to 1/3 of students who enter college are not prepared for higher education through their standard high school education (McMahon, 2015). If online education is serving students with multiple interests and under-served demographics the numbers may be indicative of the challenges in their student populations.

As online schools become more prominent, the very nature and face of education will likely change to incorporate new methods of school evaluation. At present traditional schools are defining the dropout rates leaning heavily in their favor and may not reflect what is occurring in online schools. Coming to a stable definition that reflects both mediums is necessary for an accurate and fair assessment of school quality.

Grau-Valldosera, J. & Minguillion, J. (2014). Rethinking dropout in online higher education: the case of Universitat Oberta De Catalunya, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 15 (1).

McMahon, M. (2015). Underprepared college students. Research Starters, Education.