Grade Inflation

Grade inflation runs rampant at most colleges and universities, but faculty and administrators are seemingly unwilling to face the problem. This book explains why, exposing many of the misconceptions surrounding college grading. Based on historical research and the results of a yearlong, on-line course evaluation experiment conducted at Duke University during the 1998-1999 academic year, the effects of student grading on various educational processes, and their subsequent impact on student and faculty behavior, is examined. Principal conclusions of this investigation are that instructors' grading practices have a significant influence on end-of-course teaching evaluations, and that student expectations of grading practices play an important role in the courses that students decide to take. The latter effect has a serious impact on course enrollments in the natural sciences and mathematics, while the combination of both mean that faculty have an incentive to award high grades, and students have an incentive to choose courses with faculty who do. Grade inflation is the natural consequence of this incentive system. Material contained in this book is essential reading for anyone involved in efforts to reform our postsecondary educational system, or for those who simply wish to survive and prosper in it.

Valen Johnson is a Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Michigan. Prior to accepting an appointment in Ann Arbor, he was a Professor of Statistics and Decision Sciences at Duke University, where data for this book was collected. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

• Evaluation
• Professor
• education
• mathematics
• statistics
• university

From the reviews:

"GRADE INFLATION is an important book. Johnson does an excellent job of making the sophisticated statistical results accessible and understandable. It should be read by every faculty member who serves on a personnel committee, as well as by all academic administrators." (THE IRASCIBLE PROFESSOR, 2003)

"GRADE INFLATION is a tour de force...his book is a major contribution to the growing literature on this important subject...[it] is essential reading for everyone interested in the integrity of both academic standards and assessment of student learning. Surely its definitive treatment of grade inflation will be well received by the academy and its constituencies and will foster long-needed reform." (Brian Manhire, Ohio University)

"...This is a wonderful book. The reviewer would strongly recommend this book to anyone who teaches on the college level, and more importantly to faculty senates who traditionally retain the authority to make change in grading policies." (COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY JOURNAL, Winter 2004)

"This is a very thorough analysis of the ways in which variability in grading practice—across institutions, faculties/departments and individual courses—have consequences for the popularity of student choice of options, in student evaluations of teaching (SETs) and in a general degradation of academic standards." (Short Book Reviews of the International Statistical Institute, April 2004)

"Grade Inflation – A Crisis in College Education by Valen E. Johnson is, in the opinion of the Irascible Professor, an outstanding contribution to the debate about the effects of ever rising grades in colleges and universities across the United States. … Grade Inflation is an important book. Johnson does an excellent job of making the sophisticated statistical results accessible and understandable. It should be read by every faculty member who serves on a personal committee, as well as by all academicadministrators." (Dr. Mark H. Shapiro, Irascibleprofessor.com, June, 2003)

• Department of Biostatistics, UM School of Public Health, Ann Arbor

  Valen E. Johnson

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