Full Description
An authoritative and provocative discussion of the key issues surrounding grade inflation and its possible effects on academic excellence.
This book provides a provocative look at the issues and controversies surrounding grade inflation, and, more generally, grading practices in American higher education. The contributors confront the issues from a number of different disciplines and varying points of view. Topics explored include empirical evidence for and against the claim that there is a general upward trend in grading, whether grade inflation (if it exists) is a problem, which ethical considerations are relevant to grading, and whether heavy reliance on anonymous student evaluations of teaching excellence has a distorting effect on grading practices. Finally, the contributors offer contrasting perspectives on the prospects for reform.
Contents
Foreword
John D.Wiley
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. The Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation
Alfie Kohn
2. Undergraduate Grades: A More Complex Story Than "Inflation"
Clifford Adelman
3. Understanding Grade Inflation
Richard Kamber
4. Grade Inflation and Grade Variation:What's All the Fuss About?
Harry Brighouse
5 From Here to Equality: Grading Policies for Egalitarians
Francis K. Schrag
6. Grade "Inflation" and the Professionalism of the Professoriate
Mary Biggs
7. Fissures in the Foundation:Why Grade Conflation Could Happen
Mary Biggs
8. Grading Teachers: Academic Standards and Student Evaluations
Lester H. Hunt
9. Combating Grade Inflation: Obstacles and Opportunities
Richard Kamber
10. Grade Distortion, Bureaucracy, and Obfuscation at the University of Alabama
David T. Beito and Charles W. Nuckolls
Afterword: Focusing on the Big Picture
Lester H. Hunt
List of Contributors
Index
Contents
