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Innovative Higher Education

, Volume 44, Issue 6, pp 497–510 | Cite as

The Distribution of College Grades across Fields in the Contemporary University

  • Joseph C. HermanowiczEmail author
  • David W. Woodring
Article
First Online:

Abstract

Scholars have argued that grade inflation is pervasive throughout colleges and universities and that it is presently at an all-time high. Inflation is, however, a temporal concept: it is theoretically impossible for grades to keep increasing on a fixed scale. In this article we examine a related, though empirically distinct, phenomenon: the distribution of grades across fields in a university. We question global statements about grade inflation and examine if and how the university grading structure is internally differentiated. We use the idea of consensus, the extent to which practitioners of a field agree, as a means to differentiate areas in a university. Based on undergraduate grade data from a large, public university in the U.S., we use cluster analysis to ascertain an “architecture” of grades. The results demonstrate significant variation in how grades are distributed across fields. The work identifies a need to probe further the linkages between field consensus, rigor, student learning, and grade allocation in college.

Keywords

College students Grades Grade inflation Academic fields Cluster analysis 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Karlo Lei and Sondra Barringer for comments and suggestions in the development of the paper.

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© Springer Nature B.V. 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of SociologyThe University of GeorgiaAthensUnited States

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