Relative impacts of different grade scales on student success in introductory physics

In deciding on a student’s grade in a class, an instructor generally needs to combine many individual grading judgments into one overall judgment. Two relatively common numerical scales used to specify individual grades are the 4-point scale (where each whole number 0–4 corresponds to a letter grade...

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Autores principales:	David J. Webb, Cassandra A. Paul, Mary K. Chessey
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	American Physical Society 2020
Materias:	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/cfe270fc788c423c8df6203c1b16020e
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:cfe270fc788c423c8df6203c1b16020e2021-12-02T10:53:22ZRelative impacts of different grade scales on student success in introductory physics10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.0201142469-9896https://doaj.org/article/cfe270fc788c423c8df6203c1b16020e2020-08-01T00:00:00Zhttp://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020114http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020114https://doaj.org/toc/2469-9896In deciding on a student’s grade in a class, an instructor generally needs to combine many individual grading judgments into one overall judgment. Two relatively common numerical scales used to specify individual grades are the 4-point scale (where each whole number 0–4 corresponds to a letter grade) and the percent scale (where letter grades A through D are uniformly distributed in the top 40% of the scale). This paper uses grading data from a single series of courses offered over a period of 10 years to show that the grade distributions emerging from these two grade scales differed in many ways from each other. Evidence suggests that the differences are due more to the grade scale than to either the students or the instructors. One major difference is that the fraction of students given grades less than C- was over 5 times larger when instructors used the percent scale. The fact that each instructor who used both grade scales gave more than 4 times as many of these low grades under percent scale grading suggests that the effect is due to the grade scale rather than the instructor. When the percent scale was first introduced in these courses in 2006, one of the authors of this paper, who is also one of the instructors in this dataset, had confidently predicted that any changes in course grading would be negligible. They were not negligible, even for this instructor.David J. WebbCassandra A. PaulMary K. ChesseyAmerican Physical SocietyarticleSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691PhysicsQC1-999ENPhysical Review Physics Education Research, Vol 16, Iss 2, p 020114 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999
spellingShingle	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999 David J. Webb Cassandra A. Paul Mary K. Chessey Relative impacts of different grade scales on student success in introductory physics
description	In deciding on a student’s grade in a class, an instructor generally needs to combine many individual grading judgments into one overall judgment. Two relatively common numerical scales used to specify individual grades are the 4-point scale (where each whole number 0–4 corresponds to a letter grade) and the percent scale (where letter grades A through D are uniformly distributed in the top 40% of the scale). This paper uses grading data from a single series of courses offered over a period of 10 years to show that the grade distributions emerging from these two grade scales differed in many ways from each other. Evidence suggests that the differences are due more to the grade scale than to either the students or the instructors. One major difference is that the fraction of students given grades less than C- was over 5 times larger when instructors used the percent scale. The fact that each instructor who used both grade scales gave more than 4 times as many of these low grades under percent scale grading suggests that the effect is due to the grade scale rather than the instructor. When the percent scale was first introduced in these courses in 2006, one of the authors of this paper, who is also one of the instructors in this dataset, had confidently predicted that any changes in course grading would be negligible. They were not negligible, even for this instructor.
format	article
author	David J. Webb Cassandra A. Paul Mary K. Chessey
author_facet	David J. Webb Cassandra A. Paul Mary K. Chessey
author_sort	David J. Webb
title	Relative impacts of different grade scales on student success in introductory physics
title_short	Relative impacts of different grade scales on student success in introductory physics
title_full	Relative impacts of different grade scales on student success in introductory physics
title_fullStr	Relative impacts of different grade scales on student success in introductory physics
title_full_unstemmed	Relative impacts of different grade scales on student success in introductory physics
title_sort	relative impacts of different grade scales on student success in introductory physics
publisher	American Physical Society
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/cfe270fc788c423c8df6203c1b16020e
work_keys_str_mv	AT davidjwebb relativeimpactsofdifferentgradescalesonstudentsuccessinintroductoryphysics AT cassandraapaul relativeimpactsofdifferentgradescalesonstudentsuccessinintroductoryphysics AT marykchessey relativeimpactsofdifferentgradescalesonstudentsuccessinintroductoryphysics
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Relative impacts of different grade scales on student success in introductory physics

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