Assessment grades are immensely important in the sphere of American education, but the way many students are currently scored in their courses is an inadequate and detrimental procedure. Specifically, the four-point grade point average system and in-class grading policies often succeed in victimizing students rather than bolstering their educational experience.
Under the four-point GPA system, slight differences in the number grades students receive on individual assessments often culminate in large-scale discrepancies in the amount of “grade points” they receive for a particular class, as the letter grades designated to evaluate “grade points” usually derive from a range of values (an “A,” for example, may encompass the values 93-97). In other words, a four-point GPA shows no difference between a student who missed the next highest letter grade in a class by a mere point and one who missed it by four points. These discrepancies may not have substantial impacts on some students, though they can cause significant impediments to others, as countless majors, academic programs and internships flat-out deny applicants if they do not meet a certain minimum GPA.
A simple alternative can be employed to mitigate the problems arising from “grade points” representing a range of values: the 100-point scale, which eliminates the unnecessary process of converting number grades to letter grades to “grade points.” High schools across the country have already made this switch, and institutions of higher learning should follow suit, as the 100-point scale allows for a more accurate representation of the scores students receive in individual courses.
Yet, while a 100-point GPA scale succeeds in more accurately representing the grades students receive in individual classes, neither this system nor the four-point GPA address one of the greatest flaws in the American grading system in general: subjectivity.
A substantial portion of college and high school courses require assessments that cannot be graded easily; essays and short answer responses, for example, require graders to determine the degree to which a question has been answered, not simply whether the answer is “right” or “wrong.” This form of grading naturally invokes the academic preferences of the respective graders, which is not exactly a “solvable” problem (students should expect higher grades if they cater their responses to the material the teacher focuses on the most). The bigger issue stemming from this form of grading — and the issue that can more easily be solved — involves the biases teachers possess toward individual students.
Perceptions of students absolutely impact the grades they receive. According to a study on academic performance in elementary schools, boys who exhibit the same standardized intelligence scores as girls generally receive lower grades on teacher-graded assessments than their standardized intelligence scores would predict, a result of biases formed by the discrepancies in behavior between boys and girls of that age. While this issue in gender discrimination likely does not exist at higher levels of education, the takeaway from this study is clear: in-class student behavior impacts teacher-graded assessments.
Law schools across the nation have unilaterally addressed this problem by invoking anonymous grading policies, from Georgetown University to the University of Alabama to Columbia University. Anonymous grading essentially removes the possibility of in-class behavior bias (unless a teacher somehow memorizes the handwriting of each student), and, according to a study from the University of Kentucky, it allows perceptions of students’ personalities, behaviors and aesthetic features to be independent of the grading process, which should focus solely on students’ abilities to process and synthesize the course material.
Everyone learns differently. Some students may have an ideal method of learning that aligns with that of their teachers, though countless others prefer alternative methods, such as independent review, which can create rifts in the student-teacher relationship and lead to negative biases. Students should not be expected to “suck up” or pretend to enjoy certain activities in the classroom simply to impact the scores they receive on teacher-graded assessments. They have the right to be evaluated anonymously; their personal relationship with a teacher should not correlate to the grade they receive in a particular course.
GPAs and subjective grading are only two of the numerous problems that exist within the current climate of American education. That being said, it is imperative that high schools and institutions of higher learning address these issues so students can begin to break the chains of educational inadequacy — so students are no longer repressed by the systems in which they are practically forced to participate. One hundred point scales and anonymous grading must be implemented in institutions where test scores actually matter — otherwise the classroom will continue to be a conduit of deception, not learning.
Ryan Gorman is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at r.gorman@cavalierdaily.com.
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