Grading, GPA and the +/- system
I teach a freshman-level GER course, my sections of which are restricted to incoming freshmen in a certain major. I really like teaching this class; the students are generally quite bright and tend to be hard workers as well, especially since it’s their first semester. The result is that overall they do quite well in my class, earning grades mostly in the B - A-minus range.
The university at which I teach has a weighted GPA system -- an A is a 4.00, an A- is worth 3.67, a B+ is worth 3.33, and so on. The result is that the difference between a 94 (A) and a 93 (A-) reaches beyond the expression of number grades into their overall GPA. Likewise for the 86/87 difference, the 83/84 difference, and so on. So, in addition to the “Why did I get a B+ instead of an A-?” emails, I get “Why did I get a B instead of a B+?” and, my all-time favorites, “I thought I would get an A in this class. Why did I get an A-?” and its variant, “I thought I did well in this class. Why did I get an A-?” (emphasis mine -- yes, I’ve really gotten that last one.) I generally just send back a list of the student’s grades for the semester and explain that that’s the grade they got and they’re welcome to make an appointment to talk with me if they need to. I’ve never had anyone make that appointment. However, I’ve seen colleagues get dragged through emails, phone calls, meetings, meetings with the course director, meetings with the department head, etc. on the basis of one or two percentage points which the student would easily have earned simply by meeting the basic attendance requirement for the course, let alone performing better on one or two assignments.
I almost tagged this entry "problem-students," but I don't think it's entirely their fault -- the way the system is set up, it’s in their interest to argue for those .3 or .5 or .8 percentage points that will make the difference to their GPA. I imagine some teachers do cave and bump up the grade, although I don’t unless I’ve made some sort of mathematical error. I don’t curve, and the grades are based on a thousand-point scale, so technically, I don’t “bump” for an 895 either, though enough of the grading is subjective that I can usually find those five points in participation or something. I do sympathize -- I've had enough borderline grades myself, and I know at least one time my prof bumped me up without my even asking. However, every time the university complains that students’ grades are being inflated, I want to print out copies of the +/- system and paste them all over the administrative building.
I think the system is good for some things: there is a significant difference between 89% performance in a class and 80%, and the higher grade should be rewarded appropriately. Still, it’s hard to take the +/- system seriously when there is no A+ (I think the difference between a 99 and a 94 is at least as important than the one between a 94 and a 90), the B level is divided into three values, and there is no C-. It all seems somewhat arbitrary, and it’s sometimes hard to explain to the students why the grade they earned is the grade they’re getting, especially when it’s an 86 instead of an 87. The whole system seems to place a heavy burden on teachers, especially graduate instructors who seem, from my informal survey of my officemates, to get quite a lot of this behavior from their students.
I wrote this post to vent, but also to ask how others go about handling these emails. Also, I know of at least a few other universities which use the +/- system, and some that are on a straight A=4, B=3, etc. system. Does anyone have opinions on which is better? Obviously, I can’t change the system, but if I have a better understanding of why the decision is made to use one system or the other, I might be able to wrap my head around ours a little better.
Thanks, and I hope everyone’s semesters are winding down happily...