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A comment on Grade inflation: What goes up must come down. Parent comment

Re:Grade inflation: What goes up must come down by klodolph on Wednesday January 04, 2023 @01:24PM (#34249366)
This was reasonably common about three generations ago in the US, and the one thing I can say for certain, is that such a system is bad pedagogy.

The purpose of grades should be to inform students of their performance relative to expectations / benchmarks. It should not be used to rank students against each other.

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Re:Grade inflation: What goes up must come down by impossiblefork on Wednesday January 04, 2023 @03:20PM (#34250881)
Yes, but in the US grades are used for selection, so it seems reasonable to keep them comparable.

Since we in the EU have the Bologna system French and Italian students will come to Sweden and Swedish students go to French universities, and if some universities are just handing out As or others grade properly it will become strange.

I think it's actually useful to be able to see the people able to perform at the 10% level in hard classes. For example, suppose that a student in a less prestigious subject takes a hard class in a more prestigious subject, and performs at the top 10% level-- it seems reasonable that he should be able to show that off with a grade that is genuinely high.

Furthermore, top 10% performance is something to strive for. Top 40% performance, it's not very good. It means you've maybe understood most of the course, but it doesn't mean the ability to creatively apply the material, which top 10% in fact can.

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