Re:Grade inflation: why weren’t the instructors all giving a...
by _delirium on Saturday August 13, 2011 @12:02PM
(#2881200)
I could see that working for very standardized courses with objective tests, like intro calc, but it'd be more problematic in higher-level courses. There isn't usually 100% consensus on how to do many things, like what constitutes a good project and what things are most important in a write-up (and the higher-level you get, the more sharp disagreements between professors get). So students and professors, fairly reasonably, bridge the gap by communicating about shared expectations. If then a third party grades it, they might be grading in a way that isn't actually consistent with what the professor asked the students to do, and with what he/she led them to believe would carry the most weight in grading.
An analogy might be going back and forth with a client on contract work, delivering a result you're pretty sure they're happy with, but then having it assessed by someone other than the client, who didn't participate in the previous discussions. It's a sort of multiple-bosses problem, which can make it harder to focus and feel confident that you know what's being asked of you.
You wouldn't be allowed to review your own journal submissions, or even those of a close peer (I hope), but it seems student assessment is done in a much less rigorous way.