How do we assign the final grade?
Dheeraj Sanghi
IIT Kanpur
Agenda




Why grades and not marks
How many distinct grades
Different ways of grading
Conclusions
Feb 2011
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
2
Why grades, not marks

From a student’s perspective
 Reduced stress




Performance metrics are extremely important for students
If slightly more work can result in better performance metric, the
student is under pressure
If a lot of hard work is needed to improve performance metric,
then student is not likely to attempt it
Assumption:


Therefore:

Feb 2011
Student has an estimate of what value of performance metric she is
going to get at a certain level of work
Grading system works better when there is continuous evaluation
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
3
Why grades, not marks

From a teacher’s perspective

Reduced stress

It is extremely difficult to have the complete evaluation in a
very objective and consistent fashion


If the performance metrics to be assigned is continuous, any
two students with a small difference, a different test could have
resulted in a different ordering

Feb 2011
Consistency here means that the result would not be very
different, if a different set of questions were asked
For a broad performance metrics, several students with small
differences will get the same metric, and consistency will be an
issue only with borderline cases
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
4
Are marks useful in any scenario?

Marks (or performance metrics which take a large number of
different values) are important in following situations:
 When the need to order students is very important

For example, in admission tests like JEE



Would be nice to have standardized, objective tests to ensure
reliability of evaluation
When the evaluation is not for external consumption, but is
being given as a feedback

Feb 2011
Having only grades in 12th class exams would necessitate another exam
for admission to programs where currently only marks are considered
On an assignment, a student is not interested in just an overall
grade, but where the marks are being deducted
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
5
Should we only have Pass/Fail grades



P/F grades will minimize stress both for students and teachers
But lack of stress also means lack of incentive to learn
Best learning takes place in an environment of moderate stress
 High stress causes exclusive focus on exams and not on
learning
 Lack of stress encourages students to not take the course
seriously


Feb 2011
Students won’t even participate in learning
Teachers won’t get enough opportunity to instill the joy of learning
that course.
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
6
How many grades?

Researchers in this aspect of assessment primarily study reliability of reporting



How many students get the grades they “deserve”
What is the average error in reporting performance
Large number of grades:

Would cause a higher mis-reporting, i.e., more students get a different grade than they
deserve


But the error in reporting performance would also be less for an average student


This affects credibility of the performance reporting system
Appears to be more fair
If eventually reporting has to be done for a large number of examinations/courses


Feb 2011
The error will even out irrespective of the number of grades used
Hence fairness is less important than credibility
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
7
How many grades?

If we further consider the impact of stress induced by the
number of grades



Less number of grades is to be preferred
Except that the number should not be so small that it gives
no incentive to learn
Suggestion:



Feb 2011
Start with a small number of grades
If students are not performing because there is too little
stress, increase the number of grades
If the students are not performing because there is too
much stress, decrease the number of grades
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
8
Different ways of assigning grades

Mapping from marks to grades

A pre-set mapping, for example:





Feb 2011
90% and more get an “A” grade
75-90% get a “B” grade, etc.
Gives no comparative information for a student
across batches
Gives no indication of broad rank within the class
One can only compare two students of the same
class with different grades
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
9
Different ways of assigning grades

Mapping from percentile to grades

Again, a pre-set mapping, but not of specific
marks, for example



Gives some information about relative position of
a student


Feb 2011
Top 25% get an “A” grade
Next 25% get a “B” grade, etc.
Someone with a “B” grade is behind at least 25%
students in the batch
If all courses employ a similar mapping then CGPA
can give a good estimate of rank in the batch
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
10
Different ways of assigning grades


Find mean and standard deviation of the marks
obtained by the entire class
Use some mathematical functions to create a
mapping from a range of marks to a specific
grade, for example:


Feb 2011
Marks more than mean + SD get an “A” grade
Marks between mean and (mean + SD) get a “B”
grade
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
11
Different ways of assigning grades

To improve reliability (and credibility) of the grade


Use one of the methods to first come up with rough grade
boundaries
Look in the neighborhood of that point, if there is a gap in
the marks obtained by the candidates



Feb 2011
Larger the gap at the grade boundaries, better is the grade
assignment from reliability perspective
Chose the largest gap in the neighborhood and make this
as the grade boundary
Relative grading reduces the mis-reporting and further
enhances reliability of the reported grade
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
12
Who fails the course

Assigning “F” grade is somewhat different from assigning
other grades




Feb 2011
It should not be purely a relative grade
At the beginning of the course, the instructor should
articulate the minimum expectation from the course
The evaluation throughout the course should be such that
it allows to find out if that minimum learning has happened
Grade “F” is to be assigned only if that minimum is not
achieved
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
13
Who fails the course


However, there is a relative aspect of failure
The minimum expectation should be established in such
a way that not everyone is able to achieve that
(assuming large class)




Feb 2011
If everyone meets that expectation, it shows that the
expectations were low
Good students would have been bored in the course
The course could have been offered at a higher level
Therefore, the instructor has been unfair to good students
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
14
Conclusions



Research in the area of grading tells what are
the issues and how they relate to each other
Generally there are no unique “answers” since
the situation in different universities, cultures,
classes, and disciplines is different
But knowing the research, instructors, disciplines
or university could come up with guidelines for
improved assessment in their courses
Feb 2011
Indo-US Workshop: Effective Teaching
15