Grade inflation on Midmorning
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Update: Interesting program.
A few snippets --
If profs give easier A's they get higher ratings from students, which is a main way schools track faculty teaching. So it's a perverse incentive.
Administrators feel similar pressure. The emphasis on student recreation -- the full college experience -- is up. So administrators feel pressure not to make the academic experience too difficult or time-consuming.
There's grade inflation across the board, but it's more prevalent at top-tier and private universities. Also, professors get more flack from students when they give lower grades. At research universities, all that flack takes time away from research. So it's often easier to bump up a grade and get on with your real work.
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Just click on the link below to read the live-blogging transcript.
A's for everyone? The problem of grade inflation on college campuses
A high GPA is a lot easier to come by than it used to be thanks to grade inflation. What's wrong with an easy A? Well, when every class is an easy A students do less work and a 4.0 tells potential employers nothing about a student's actual ability.
Guests:
Philip Babcock: associate professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has just published a study on grade inflation.
Andrew Perrin: Professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina. He is the chairman of the committee at UNC to implement a fuller grading spectrum.
