One way to approach this ‘inevitability question’ is to ask whether the levels of student disengagement observed in Canada and the US are also found in massified systems in other countries. To answer this question, we can look at data from some European studies that have measured students’ time use out of class in a comparable way to the NSSE studies.[i] These data come from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) in Oxford, England.[ii]

The HEPI studies, conducted in 2006, 2007, and 2009, found that students in England spent on average about 13 hours per week on ‘private study:’ reading for classes and completing assignments.[iii] When added to an average of about 14 hours of class time, the total amount of time spent on their studies was just over 26 hours, comparable to what Canadian and American students spend according to the NSSE studies—the equivalent of a part-time job.

Study time was also examined in terms of variations among and within universities, with the finding that these averages ranged from under 15 hours per week to over 45 hours at different universities. When different types of programmes were examined, it appears that the least effort is put into the liberal arts programmes like humanities and social sciences (total time commitments of about 20 hours per week) and the most into professional/vocational programmes like medicine and engineering (over 35 hours per week).

However, when compared to other European countries, English students spend on average 15 per cent less time on their studies out of class. When time spent in class was added with time preparing for class, students in France spent almost 40 hours per week. Other countries topping 35 hours per week—the equivalent of a full-time job—were Norway, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland.[iv]

After presenting the results for English universities and summarizing these comparisons with other European countries, Bahram Bekhradnia, the HEPI Director, voiced his frustration at how policymakers in the England were ignoring these findings, especially the questions raised ‘about the possible variation in standards between subjects and universities, and about what it means to have a degree from an English university.’[v] Bekhradnia continued by making the following observations:

If it is possible to earn a degree in, say, history in one university after studying for just 20 hours a week whereas a student in a different university studying history is required to put in 30 hours each week, then it is reasonable to assume that the student in the latter will, all other things being equal, achieve a higher standard. That is not of course necessarily so. It could be that the former university has found a magic bullet that enables students to achieve the same high standards as a student at the latter – or it could be that the latter is more inefficient than the former. That at least is a matter for investigation and explanation, and so far there has been no apparent inclination on the part of those concerned to investigate whether that is so, and if not, what the implications are for standards in our universities. At the extreme, of course, this may simply be an indication that what students study, and how much they learn, is not the most important thing while they are at university and that the three or four years they spend there are more important for other reasons. If that is the case too, that is something that is worth investigating and concluding on the basis of evidence. What is not acceptable is simply to ignore the issue.

With respect to the unfavourable comparisons of English universities with some continental ones, Bekhradnia concludes ‘that students in England appear to devote less time to their studies than students elsewhere in Europe – and that therefore a degree in England can apparently be obtained with less effort than elsewhere.’ Given the prospect that English universities ‘are not very demanding of their students’[vi]—a prospect also faced in Canada and the US—Bekhradnia contends the following:

It is inconvenient for us now also to have to demonstrate how students in this country achieve outcomes equivalent to those in other countries with very different amounts of effort, even within their shorter [3-year] degree courses. It is quite plausible that they might do so, but if the issue is simply ignored, as it has been so far, the presumption will be that degrees in this country are more easily available in some universities and in some subjects than elsewhere in Europe, and that on average our degree standards are lower.

On the positive side, it does appear that some English universities are attending to these problems, but on a negative side, just as in Canada, in England ‘the response of the national bodies and those that represent universities collectively has been disappointingly defensive.’ Still, the press in England picked up the story, making note of the gender differences, suggesting ‘boys are down the pub and the girls are in the library,’ as well as the now obvious conclusion that many ‘students are enrolled full-time but studying part-time.’[vii]

Based on these international comparisons, therefore, it appears that disengagement is not an inevitable result of massification, although it is a distinct possibility if stewards of the system are not watchful.

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PS. This my last posting for the summer. Meanwhile, the sequel to Ivory Tower Blues is now in production and should be available by year’s end. It is titled Lowering Higher Education: Pseudo-Vocationalism in Canadian Universities.

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[ii] See also the report Eurostudent 2005 Social And Economic Conditions Of Student Life, for results from a project coordinated by HIS Hochschul-Informations-System, Hannover 2005, Germany, http://www.his.de/Eurostudent/report2005.pdf (accessed 18 Dec. 2009).

[iii] Bahram Bekhradnia, The Academic Experience of Students in English Universities 2009 Report, Higher Education Policy Institute, September 2007, http://www.hepi.ac.uk/466/Reports.html (accessed 18 Dec. 2009).

[iv] Bekhradnia, The Academic Experience of Students in English Universities 2009 Report, 7. The Eurostudent 2005 estimates are a bit lower for European countries, with most recording between 30 to 35 hours per week, and a high of 41 hours for Portugal (pp. 132-133). These differing stimates among studies are likely due to question wording.

[v] Bekhradnia, The Academic Experience of Students in English Universities 2009 Report, 6.

[vi] Ibid., 8.

[vii] BBC NEWS, ‘Students in England ‘Work Less’,’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7011121.stm (accessed 19 Dec. 2009). Males put in an average of 11.7 hours per week in private study, while females put in 13.3 (Sastry and Bekhradnia, The Academic Experience of Students in English Universities, 9.

Another historical source is a book written in the 1980s by historian Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz (Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987]). Horowitz argues that three distinct undergraduate cultures emerged at different points in the history of American universities. This book provides us with some useful insights into the relationships between students and professors in different eras, and the implication for student disengagement, that have implications for Canadian universities.

The first undergraduate culture emerged from the expansion of American universities during the 1800s, which depended on the ability of these schools to attract the children of nouveau riche parents whose wealth was derived from Southern plantations, mercantile trade, and Northern industrialism. Horowitz calls the culture that emerged through an accommodation of universities with the desires of these young students from affluent backgrounds the ‘collegiate culture.’ Before this time, those intending to become ministers dominated universities, and they took their studies very seriously. For the sake of sufficient enrolments, and thus their survival, universities of this era played into university attendance as a symbol of social privilege and as a way to help students sustain that privilege by making the appropriate contacts for a future career and marriage. The collegiate culture represented a level of academic engagement that was sufficient to keep both professors and parents happy, along with extra-curricular activities and entertainments sufficient to keep students happy. Student resistance to institutional academic norms tended to be implicit and kept outside of the classroom. Achievement among students varied mainly in terms of the academic abilities and interests that students brought with them to their undergraduate programmes, but the collegiate culture eschewed an obsession with high grades and pleasing professor’s demands for excellence.

The second culture, which Horowitz calls the ‘outsider culture’ represented those who attended university as a means of upward mobility, beginning in the early twentieth century. These students, who did not have the advantages afforded by wealthy parents, sought to compensate for this by forming close relationships with faculty members and using the university as a stepping-stone to a career at a higher level of status than that of their parents. Horowitz called these students ‘outsiders’ (to collegiate culture) because they embraced the institutional academic culture rather than eschewing it. Their attitudes and work habits were similar to those who attended because of clerical aspirations, but they quickly outnumbered the clerics-in-training as their ranks included women, minorities (including Jews), and veterans.

The third culture, the ‘rebel culture,’ also appeared on American campuses in the early twentieth century, and was created by students who valued intellectuality, bohemianism, and a general trade in radical ideas. Horowitz includes people like Walter Lippmann and Margaret Mead in this group of students. Although hard-working, these students were not concerned with grades so much as social justice, and could be as hedonist as the collegiate student, while wanting to play a role in university governance. However, Horowitz argues that the outsider culture eventually came to dominate American campuses as the importance of university credentials spread in terms of gaining access to professional schools and the business world.

Horowitz makes reference to several historically specific norms in these cultures that provide us with a sense of contrast with contemporary university life.

With respect to the norms concerning grades, in one era (the mid 1800s) cheating was considered to be acceptable if it was necessary for a student to stay in school, but it was done on the part of strong students to help weaker students who were at risk of failing. In fact, if a student refused to help a weaker student it was considered a sign of dishonour. Moreover, it was considered unacceptable for a good student to cheat to better his or her own grades.

The pressures that contributed to grade inflation apparently began in the 1920s as more students—outsiders—attended universities as an avenue of social mobility. Prior to this, simply passing a course of studies was normally considered sufficient to qualify for postgraduate or professional schools, or entry into the workplace. However, as enrolments increased so did competition for placements, and grades were increasingly used as a sorting mechanism. This grade-inflation pressure was renewed in the 1970s and 1980s, as more and more students were encouraged through government policies to attain university-level credentials as a means of occupational entry. Horowitz referred to these students as the ‘new outsiders’ and ‘grinds’ and she argues that they came to dominate undergraduate culture, competing with each other for high grades and degrading the sense of common community that had defined campus life in previous eras.

The history of engagement follows a similar pattern. The wealthy collegiate students of the 1800s engaged in a certain amount of distancing from the ‘good student’ role, maintaining an air of detachment from academic achievement. The ‘gentleman’s C’ is the legacy of this attitude. Later, the outsiders were distained as ‘brown nosers’ because of their hard work in pursuit of high grades.

Extrapolating from these historical trends, since the 1980s it appears that a new student culture has emerged, which we have referred to as a culture institutionalizing a norm of entitled disengagement. In no previous era did high levels of disengagement coincide with extreme pressure to attain high grades, as is the case in the current era. This historical evidence supports the argument that disengagement in conjunction with expectations for high grades—entitled disengagement—is a part of a rising tide best described as a culture of disengagement.

It thus appears that this culture of disengagement is coming to dominate many universities, pushing out the ‘outsider’ culture that Horowitz argues dominated universities of the mid-twentieth century. This latest historical development is traceable to circumstances unique to the present era of superficial calls for democratisation, where large numbers of unprepared students from all social classes have been funnelled into universities with the expectation that simply paying tuition and putting out a minimal effort will have a maximal payoff in terms of grade attainment and eventual occupational success. Unlike the past, where those seeking upward mobility did not take for granted their chances of success and therefore valued hard work, those with a sense of entitled disengagement apparently feel that the path has been opened for them and they simply have to follow it.

This is a very curious claim for a university President to make, because it implies that it has always been a norm for university students to be disengaged. If this has been the case, what sort of scam have universities been running on the public? How could they in good faith claim year after year that universities represent ‘excellence,’ justifying billions of dollars of university funding each year. We did not deal extensively with historical evidence of disengagement in Ivory Tower Blues, but simply argued that in the past there have been some minimally engaged students, especially from wealthy backgrounds, for whom the ‘gentleman’s C’ of a bygone era sufficed to keep their bill-paying parents happy. However, we made the point that these types of students did not expect grades higher than Cs and therefore did not have a disengagement compact with professors. They simply blended in and did not affect standards in the system. To claim that universities have condoned academic disengagement as a norm is to suggest that higher education has been a fraud for centuries, but I do not really think most people would argue this.

Still, there has been little empirical evidence to counter this cynical view until very recently. A report with such evidence was released last month. It compiled and compared the results from a variety of quantitative surveys of ‘study time’ back to the 1960s and other studies back to the 1920s.[ii]

This report traces student ‘study time’ using the recent NSSE surveys, and other large sample sources (NLSY79, 1981; HERI, 1988, 2004), along with data from the 1960s (Project Talent, 1961), showing a very obvious linear decline in student effort. Over that time, full-time students have apparently gone from treating university as a ‘full-time job” in the 1960s, involving about 40 hours per week (study time of 25 hours plus class time of 15 hours), to a part-time job in the 2000s, involving about 27 hours per week for study and class time combined. Studies using other methods confirm this trend, but extend it back to the 1920s, showing a consistent trend for full-time students to treat university as a full-time job between the 1920s and 1960s, followed by a linear reduction in academic effort from the 1960s to the 2000s.

The authors of this report controlled for a number of factors other than student effort that might have produced these results. For example, they examined ‘framing effects’ (how the question is worded), whether the definition of ‘full-time’ student has changed, as well as ‘composition’ effects. For this latter effect, they examined the possibility that only certain types of students have become less engaged, a favourite argument among those who believe that rising tuition costs have made it necessary for more student to work at outside jobs. However, they found that all types of students have been putting increasingly less effort into their studies since the 1960s to bring us to the new norm of university as a part-time activity:

No group appears to have bucked the trend. Study times declined overall … for every subgroup. Working students studied less than others, but study hours fell for students in each category of work intensity, including those who did not work at all. Students with more educated fathers studied more than others; however, study times declined for students in all parental education categories. Similarly, study times declined for all race and gender categories … . Interestingly, women used to study about the same amount as men, but study more than men in recent cohorts. Engineering students studied more than other students and the gap has widened. Study times fell for all choices of major … . Students at liberal arts colleges studied more than other students, but study times fell at all types of colleges … . Lastly, data on SAT scores and school size, available for the later sub-period, show declines in study time for students of all ability levels, and at universities of all sizes and levels of selectivity. (pp. 15-16)

In my next few posts, I’ll examine more historical evidence and will look at how Canadian and American universities compare internationally.

[ii] Philip S. Babcock and Mindy Marks, The Falling Time Cost of College:

Evidence from Half a Century of Time Use Data (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2010, Working Paper 15954), http://www.nber.org/papers/w15954 (accessed 4 May 2010).

The United States

Ireland – this site also monitors the UK, the US, and other countries

Even Wikipedia provides an entry with a growing set of links to sources and websites to grade inflation in various countries and regions.

These websites have generally emerged as a result of frustrations academics experience in getting administrators or governments to even recognize the problem, let alone do something about it. We do see, however, some progress in Ireland. But elsewhere grade inflation remains the proverbial ‘elephant in the living room’: at some level, most people know it is there, but few want to talk about it.

For a full and fair treatment of the problem from multiple perspectives, allowing readers to see the (flawed) evidence and arguments put forth by ‘deniers,’ along with the counterarguments among those who take the problem seriously, I recommend Lester H. Hunt (ed.), Grade Inflation: Academic Standards in Higher Education (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008).

If anyone has other links and sources to recommend, please let me know by email or share them with readers as a comment.

In this post, I discuss two examples that illustrate why it is problematic for administrators to ignore of how grades and standards are related.

The first example was recently reported by insidehighered.com in an article titled ‘Who really failed?’ (April 15, 2010). In this case a biology professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge was removed from a course at midterm because students claimed to the dean that it was too hard (read: their marks were too low). After her dismissal, the dean raised students’ grades.

The thing is, this professor has 30 years of teaching experience and believes that “students must achieve mastery of the subject matter, not just achieve more mastery than the worst students in the course.”  This is not an instance of someone new to the profession making a mistake about standards; it is a case where the authority of a seasoned professor was nullified by an administration more concerned about ‘customer satisfaction’ than standards.

The professor, Dominique Homberger, gave weekly quizzes and (planned to give) frequent tests, but was removed after the second test, in spite of evidence of success for her strategy of driving the point home that students need to work to earn their grades. This second test included a bonus question asking students to report their biggest ‘AHA experience’ experienced in the course. One student answered as follows:

My biggest AHA‐reaction in this course is that I need to study for this course every night to make a good grade. I must also attend class, take good notes, and have study sessions with others. Usually a little studying can get me by but not with this class which is why it is my AHA‐reaction.

In addition to confirming that Homberger was merely using the rigorous standards that ought to be associated with higher education, this student’s feedback illustrates how intellectually distanced students can be from the actual substance of a course, because the ‘AHA experience’ came, not from the content of the course itself, but from the fact that someone was actually enforcing standards.

Homberger was removed without any advance notice, in spite of gains in grades by students after the ‘shock’ of the first test. The dean had not even bothered to sit in on any of her classes to determine if her teaching competence was at fault. She had no serious issues with students about her grading practices in the past, but it is telling that she hadn’t taught an introductory course in about 15 years, so perhaps did not realize how standards had slipped during that time, and how much lower-level courses had become ‘give-aways’ in which all students did well and no one faced the prospect of failure for lack of effort (see my Feb. 22 post where I provide data from Western’s introductory physics/astronomy course showing that grade distributions have gone from about 40% As and Bs and 14% Fs in the early ‘90s to over 70% As and Bs and about 3% Fs). Following her dismissal, Homberger remarked that “no one has ever questioned whether any of the test questions were unfair or unfairly graded, but that she was told that she may include ‘too many facts’ on her tests.”

This case is an example of grade inflation caused by administrators who are either unaware of grading standards or naively assume that grade inflation does not exist. In this case, the grade inflation at LSU may be ‘hidden’ inflation where old distributions are maintained, but standards are dropped, or it may be the worst form of grade inflation where distributions are raised AND standards are dropped. It is difficult to determine which is the problem at LSU based on the reporting of the incident, but the dean involved issued the following statement through his university’s public relation office stating: “The extreme nature of the grading raised a concern, and we felt it was important to take some action to ensure that our students receive a rigorous, but fair, education.” This dean’s understanding of a ‘rigorous, fair, education’ clearly needs to be closely scrutinized as the American Association of University Professors investigates this case.

Could this sort of thing happen in Canada? Well, yes it could and following the publication of Ivory Tower Blues I received several emails from university teachers who had experienced some form of it. These were mainly sessional instructors who subsequently either gave up on the profession or were forced out. However, a recent report from a colleague in response to my recent posts on grade inflation shows that it is happening in some form, even to seasoned professors.

In this case, prompted by a complaining student, an administrator e-mailed the professor, questioning his standards. The student complained to be doing “20% better in another course” offered by the department, but in spite of studying “as hard as she could” for this professor’s tests could not achieve more than a C. According to the student, this course threatens to “be an impediment” in achieving her career goals, and the blame for this impediment was placed squarely on this professor’s tests, which the students claimed “did not test your knowledge of the material that we learned in class, but of random facts and things that were not emphasized in class or in the text book.”

This administrator admitted to not being sure what should be done, but felt pressured to do something because of the higher grades being given elsewhere for the same course. This professor, with 30+ years experience in undergraduate teaching and multiple teaching awards, was asked to give assurances that his students “were adequately prepared for the content” of his exams.

In response, the professor responded with the following assurances:

[First,] the most often failed (hardest) 50% of test questions came nearly exclusively from material that was presented solely in class. This is not surprising given that up to half of the students were not in attendance on any given [date] and that many of the remainder were answering emails, laughing at a Scrubs download, or playing Spider on their ever-present laptops. Second, the tests means (unadjusted) were in the mid-50s and I adjusted them upwards to the as usual grade inflated mid 70’s, the expected reward at [this institution] for mediocre achievement …

In addition to revealing creeping grade inflation, this second example shows a how much academic disengagement hampers student learning, yet the blame is increasingly placed on professors. It also shows how the belief has spread that effort should be all that is necessary to gain high marks in any university course. Should it really be the case that someone of low to average ability should be able to achieve high marks in any university course of their choosing, even if merely on the basis of effort?

If anyone has similar stories to share, either from their personal experiences or with stories like that reported by insidehighered.com, please do so as a comment or e-mail to me at cote@uwo.ca.

The following was reported by insidehighered.com (April 2, 2010, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/02/qt#223993):

Loyola Law School in Los Angles has raised the grade of every student — retroactively — by one level (with every B turning into a B+ and so forth). A memo from the dean ran this week in the blog Above the Law. In the memo, the dean argued that potential employers look at grades and that other law schools are already easier about grades than is Loyola. While the change may go over well with students, the blog and its readers are rather skeptical. The blog asked: “Well, why stop there? Let’s give even more accolades to Loyola law students for exactly the same work they did before. How about everybody who shows up for every class session gets bumped up a full letter grade? Let’s give everybody who gets a C an opportunity to turn that into a B if they pitch in with janitorial duty on the weekends. Why not give high performers a “double” A+; an A+ with a bright, shiny, happy star — just so that employers all know that these kids are the super-most-awesome kids in the bunch!”

This is a clear example of deliberate grade inflation caused by competitions among schools to either recruit students or to give them an advantage over students from other schools. Either way, it is part of an ‘arms race’ that does not take the collective to the top, but rather to the bottom.

I’m interested in gathering additional examples, so please provide some in your comments.

I’ll share one experience of this at my own university, where an ex-student of mine (with over ten years of teaching experience with dozens of courses at the time) was teaching the same course for the main sociology department as she taught in one of our ‘satellite’ colleges. In the main department, we try to enforce the guidelines I provided in a previous post, with lower-level courses anchored to a C average. In this case, students from the main department earned a C average on the midterm, but students at the satellite college earned a D average on the same test. After some student complaints, the department Chair of the satellite department ordered the teacher to raise all grades to give the class a B average on the test—a two letter-grade boost!

My ex-student teaching the course sought counsel from me regarding what to do because she felt that the D was an accurate representation of the level of engagement students in the course in the satellite college, especially in comparison with the main department class (attendance was lower, fewer did readings in advance of lecture or participated in class discussions, etc.).

In the end, the Chair ruled the day and his students were given these “free grades” taking the class average above that of the more engaged class from the main department. My ex-student has not taught for that satellite college since.

Other stories can be told about these type of shameful grading practices of that college. In the end, it hurts their students because of its reputation for lax standards, which show in the poorer preparation of its students for fourth-year and graduate work.

If anyone has similar stories to share, either from their personal experiences or with stories like that reported by insidehighered.com, please do so.

Note: The following appeared in Western News on March 25, co-authored with Anton Allahar. It is based on my previous two posts, but includes new data on grades going back to the mid-70s. I will keep readers posted on local reactions and whether the university adminstration takes up our challenge.

http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/PDF/2010/WNews_Mar25_10.pdf

Grade inflation has become the “elephant in the room” of education. Few people want to admit it is there, and even fewer want to discuss it. We believe it is time for the Western community to discuss this issue. Before presenting data on rising grades at Western, however, it is useful to put our grading practices into a historical context.

The “unofficial” grade guidelines used in some departments at Western dating back to the 1970s are presented in the Table 1. We were handed these guidelines when we began teaching here, and they were compatible with what we had found at other Canadian universities, although they are a bit higher than traditional standards in the British system where only about one third of grades are As and Bs (Firsts and Seconds).

These guidelines were likely instituted because of inflationary pressures felt at the time. Indeed, it appears that system-wide pressures to inflate undergraduate grades date back to the early 20^th century when professional schools began to require B.A.s for admissions and then used undergraduate grades as a selection mechanism (Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present; see also Harry Lewis, Excellence Without a Soul for data showing the rise in grades at Harvard from 20% As and Bs in the 1920s to the current level topping 90%).

How well has Western done in preventing grade inflation since the guidelines were issued? Table 2 shows the changing grade distributions at Western over the past 35 years (provided courtesy of Western’s Office of Institutional Planning and Budgeting; statistics are available online from the UWO Databook for each year since 1991/92 at http://www.ipb.uwo.ca/).

It can be seen in Table 2 that for 25 years grades were relatively stable in each of the three Faculties, and in two Faculties hovered just above the guidelines presented in Table 1. We provide a note in Table 2 identifying the period during which a policy known as “bums-on-seats funding” was introduced. Since the late 90s, departmental budgets depend on how many students are enrolled in their courses.

Ten years later, grades are higher in all three faculties, with 10-20% jumps in the As and Bs awarded in first-year courses and 10% jumps in As and Bs awarded overall. Additionally, the three Faculties are converging in their inflated grading distributions. Although other factors may be involved, it is plausible that the Enrollment Contingent Funding policy may have inadvertently affected inflationary pressures by providing an incentive for departments and faculties to compete with each other to attract and retain students.

The stewards of Western’s academic standards were concerned enough in the mid-70s to recommend guidelines, albeit “unofficial” ones. Should the current stewards of Western’s academic standards be concerned with this rise in grades?

We think so, and those of us attempting to maintain meaningful standards could use some relief from the growing number of students requesting arbitrary grade increases. For example, the Sociology Department has a distribution 10% below the new Faculty norms, and these requests often come from students in other departments where the grades they receive are routinely higher. Indeed, there are significant variations among departments in the three Faculties, some in the magnitude of 20%. It is little wonder that students often voice confusions about grading standards, commonly dismissing the grades awarded by their professors as “subjective.”

An example from the Department of Economics highlights the problems now experienced by individual faculty members and their departments. Economics held first-year grades below 40% for the entire 32-year period between 74/75 and 05/06, but in 2007 decided to do something about the dramatic plunge in their first-year enrolments, which fell from 2000 students in the 70s to about 850 in 2005/06. Because we reported in Ivory Tower Blues that Economics was the last department in the Social Science Faculty maintaining traditional standards, a colleague in that department sent us an e-mail message explaining their new policy of allowing grade distributions to follow the higher Social Science Faculty norms. This colleague wrote:

The decline in enrolments naturally causes us some anxiety because we operate in an environment where the funding formula equates student numbers with dollars. For students who do take our courses, the relatively low marks have caused some dissatisfaction, and this is reflected in the workload for our faculty members, Chair, and Undergrad Director and Coordinator, as well as in our departmental teaching evaluations, which are lower than average for the Faculty.

This example shows how grade inflation can be like an arms race, where departments can compete for students by making their courses easier. Like an arms race, everyone involved becomes increasingly impoverished. The convergence of grades in the three Faculties to higher levels suggests that we are now in this situation, and that it is likely to worsen unless collective action is taken.

The stewards of Western’s academic standards should also be concerned that two-thirds of students (three-quarters in some departments) are now routinely awarded at least a B in their courses. When the average grade is a B and Honours standing is defined as having an average of 70%, what is the meaning of “Honours.” Are we not misleading those students who are in fact “average” by heaping this unwarranted praise upon them?

It is now incumbent upon our stewards to clarify how the notion of “Honours” is to be understood in terms of these new grade distributions. For example, should the cut-off for Honours standing be raised to 75%, or even 80% (but then what do we do with the Dean’s Honours List, which uses the 80% cut-off—raise it to 90%)? We think not, because this will simply continue the arms race of grade inflation.

What solutions might the stewards of this system adopt?

First, instead of feeding grade inflation, we recommend that Western reaffirm grading standards similar to those from the 1970s for those Faculties where they are appropriate. Western can do this without hurting its students’ future opportunities by developing a new institutional brand based on “quality education,” and building a reputation as a school where the grades it awards are meaningful.

Second, we encourage Western to provide leadership by convincing other universities to adopt similar standards. For example, Western could rally other universities that consider themselves “élite” to stand together in terms of common grading standards (instead of a G10, a Q10, for example).

What the stewards of the system should not do is to deny there is a problem. If they do, we challenge the administration to put their money where there mouth is. For example, based on reviews of their job performance every year faculty members are evaluated for “merit” on a scale ranging from 0 to 4, with the mean score set for each department at 2.2, the equivalent of a C. Scores of 3s and 4s would represents Bs and As. If the administration is happy with 60-70% of students routinely being awarded As and Bs, then it should award a comparable percentage of faculty members 3s and 4s for merit, adjusting their annual salary increases according. After all, if we are going to tell most of our students that they are above average, then professors should be entitled to the same ego massaging.

First, it is immediately obvious that higher grades have been awarded in all Faculties, although the Arts Faculty has a longer history of awarding inflated grades. The greatest increases are evident in the Science Faculty for both first-year courses and courses from ‘all levels.’ For first-year courses, awarded grades rose from about 43% As and Bs to about 63%, while grades for ‘all levels’ rose from 52% to 68%.  At the same time, the percentage of Fs fell from 16% to 7% for first-year courses, and 11% to 6% for all courses.

Should the stewards of Western’s academic standards be concerned?

Well, the difference between 43% and 63% is not merely a 20% increase in the number of these grades given – it is a 47% increase (with 43 as the denominator).  And the difference between 16% and 7% is not merely a 9% drop in the number of failures, but a drop of over a half (to 44% as many Fs).

Second, there are great (within) variations among departments in the three Faculties in the awarding of As and Bs, in the magnitude of 20% in the case of first-year Classical Studies compared with first-year English. It is little wonder that students often voice confusions about grading standards, commonly dismissing the grades determined by their professors as “subjective.”

But what is going on the Physics and Astronomy Department? The percentage of first-year As and Bs has increased by 76%, and by 50% for ‘all levels,’ while Fs have decreased by 500% in first-year courses and 367% for ‘all levels.’ When failure rates are at the low level of 3-4%, it usually includes only students who “flunk themselves” by not handing in assignments or sitting for exams. Apparently, standards were higher two decades ago when one in six students could not pass introductory physics and astronomy courses; now, it appears that standards are such that everyone who puts out the effort of completing assignments and sitting for exams can pass.

So, yes, the stewards of this system should be concerned. At the same time, they will need to clarify how these new grade ‘norms’ should be viewed in terms of how the notion of ‘Honours’ is to be understood.

That is, when two-thirds to three-quarters of students can earn at least a B in their courses, what is meaning of “Honours”? It has been defined at Western as achieving an average grade in their courses of 70% (Bs at Western range from numeric marks of 70-79% and As are 80% and above)? Students can apply for “honours standing” when they have a 70% average, and we have “Honours-level” courses, but I cannot find any substantive definition from Western’s Calendar or from my colleagues of what this now means. Should the cut-off be raised to 75%, or even 80% (but then what do we do with the Dean’s Honours List, which uses the 80% cut-off—raise it to 90%)?

Several further observations are in order.

(a) The Department of Economics was doing well in keeping with the traditional guidelines until a few years ago, when it decided in 2007 to do something about the dramatic plunge in their first-year enrolments, from about 2000 in the 70s and 80s to about 850 in 2005/06. Because we reported in Ivory Tower Blues that Economics was the last department in the Social Science Faculty sticking to the traditional standards (we cited the minutes from a 2003 meeting in which this was re-affirmed), a colleague in that department sent me an e-mail message about this change of standards:

The decline in enrolments naturally causes us some anxiety because we operate in an environment where the funding formula equates student numbers with dollars. For students who do take our courses, the relatively low marks have caused some dissatisfaction, and this is reflected in the workload for our faculty members, Chair, and Undergrad Director and Coordinator, as well as in our departmental teaching evaluations, which are lower than average for the Faculty.

Accordingly, the Economics Department adjusted their grade guidelines to match those of the overall Social Science Faculty. The enrolment levels have apparently begun to recover.[i]

This example shows how grade inflation can be like an arms race, where departments (and faculties, and ultimately schools) compete for students by making their courses easier. Like an arms race, everyone involved becomes increasingly impoverished. A quick check of the grades currently awarded overall in the three Faculties indicates that  grades are now converging at higher levels in the three Faculties, presumably as a result of a competition for students, who have been arriving at Western with increasing ‘grade expectations’ nurtured by inflated grades in high school.

(b) Why are grade distributions allowed to be higher in upper-year courses? If one adopts the logic that a C grade anchors the rubric of ‘average,’ there is no reason why grades should be higher in upper year courses because the standard for ‘average’ should simply shift to match the criterion group (e.g., even in a hypothetical class of geniuses, there will still be average geniuses). However, even the ‘traditional’ guidelines I provided from the 1970s built in allowances for higher grades in upper courses. This was likely to keep upper-year students happy, but also likely had something to do with entrance requirements for graduate and professional schools.

The long-term consequences of this practice, however, seem to have contributed to grade inflation to the point where grades are now compressed in graduate schools at the A level. For example, at Western, graduate students must have an incoming average of 78% to be “fundable” and must maintain this average to keep their funding. This rule came into effect some time in the late 80s or early 90s, if my memory serves me. But, looking back at the 1970s’ standards (see my last post), the guidelines specified that grades in 500-level (Masters) course should have an average of 73-77%. This is obviously unsustainable now, but only because of the arbitrary rule made by the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Weestern. Not only would professors face an insurrection among their graduate students if they normed their grades around a B average, but most of their students would lose their funding. Now graduate grades cluster in the A range, making them almost useless in providing accurate feedback to students and as indicators of quality for granting agencies, other graduate schools, and future employers.

I end this post by relating the sentiments of my colleague from Economics:

Frankly, I would prefer to keep our grade guidelines unchanged, but it is not workable to do so when surrounded by substantial, long-term grade inflation in the rest of the Faculty and university.  Maintaining grade guidelines requires collective effort at the Faculty or perhaps university level.

I agree wholeheartedly and renew my call for the stewards of Western’s standards to set university-wide grading standards. Ideally, this move would inspire other universities to adopt similar standards so that we eventually develop system-wide grading standards for both secondary and post-secondary institutions, putting these inflationary pressures to rest.

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In Ivory Tower Blues (ITB), we presented some of the grade inflations statistics from Western and several other Canadian universities. Here I will systematically compare the three largest undergraduate Faculties. First, however, a bit of historical context is in order.

The “unofficial” grade guidelines at Western dating back to the 1970s are presented in the first table. Apparently, there were inflationary pressures at the time, and my recollection is that these were circulated in the Social Science and Natural Science Faculties (they may have been used in other Faculties and departments, but those with a longer institutional memories will need to identify them). I was handed these guidelines when I began teaching here, and they were compatible with what I had found at two other Canadian universities in the 1970s and early 1980s, although they are a bit higher than traditional standards in the British system where only about one third of grades would be As and Bs (Firsts and Seconds). Allowing higher grades in more advanced courses is an issue that  I will discuss in future posts.

I would like readers to make note of two things in the above table. First, the percentage of As and Bs awarded in first-year courses should not exceed 40%. Second, other courses, except for a small number of 4^th year and Masters (500-Level) seminars, should not exceed 50% As and Bs.

Now, let’s see how well Western has done in keeping to these guidelines, beginning in early 1990s, and every five years to the present (08/09 – these statistics are available online to faculty at Western from the UWO Databook for each year since 1991/92 at http://www.uwo.ca/ipb/databk01/toc_text.html).

The following tables give the grade distributions at Western, first for the overall selected Faculties, and then for the departments within those Faculties with the lowest and highest grade distributions over time (choosing which departments had the ‘highest’ and lowest’ distributions over this range of years is a bit arbitrary, which I will explain in my next post).

In each cell, the first percentage is for As and Bs combined, and the second, in parentheses, is for Fs.

We discussed this problem in Ivory Tower Blues, noting that it is widespread, and I re-visited it in a couple of my posts last year. The existence of the problem of university students not having an adequate command of their native language should be alarming to educators regardless of whether it is a growing trend, just as it should be alarming to every Canadian citizen. There are too many reasons to enumerate here regarding why we should all be concerned, but I must comment on the denial of the problem by one person cited in the above-cited newspaper article.

The person in question is James Turk, Executive Director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers. In this article, the reporter tells us that Turk “takes all the complaints about student literacy with a grain of salt.” He is quoted as claiming that  “There’s a notion of a golden age in the past that students were wonderful, unlike now. I’m not sure that golden age ever existed … You can go back and read Plato and see Socrates talking about the allegations that this generation isn’t as not as good as previous ones.”

In previous posts I discussed a variety of preemptory gambits that people use to avoid dealing with ‘inconvenient truths’ like widespread student unreadiness, including the Golden Age and old fogey gambits, so I need not describe them here (see ‘You are just imagining a non-existent Golden Age’, 2009/09/25, and ‘You are just an old fogey’, 2009/09/11). What is remarkable is how Turk combines two of them, perhaps from his arsenal of knee-jerk reactions.

But, what is striking as a matter of logic is how Turk produces a non sequitor. There is no logical connection between the two gambits: the claim that a golden age never existed is somehow connected in his mind with Plato and Socrates supposed thinking that generations previous to them were not as good as their generation. Hmmm. Did Socrates and Plato also think that a golden age preceded them? But hold it, weren’t they part of a golden age, as some would have it? I’m confused. Are you?

Forget this knee jerk word play, and focus on the fact that as an Executive Director of the CAUT Turk has a responsibility to its members (of which I am one, along with 1000s of other professors across Canada). Student unreadiness is a union issue because it directly affects the workplace and the ability of professors to do their job in an unencumbered and non-stressful manner. I don’t follow everything he says to the press, but he seems to be obsessed with saying that the only problem universities face is under funding, and that is what he told a reporter when asked what he thought about the messages in Ivory Tower Blues.

Well Mr. Turk, I think it is time for you to make an effort to educate yourself on the issues and try to understand what the members of your association need from you. It is not having you dismiss their concerns in the media and it is not denying that your membership faces serious workplace problems. More money to universities will not fix the problem of student unreadiness. If you have plan for how it will, we are all ears.

Mr. Turk, your comments on this blog are welcome.

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Note to unregistered readers: Please send any comments to me at cote@uwo.ca and I will post them for you.