I recently completed a nine-part series entitled “Grade Inflation is a Symptom, Not the Disease.” But if you have read any of these posts, you will know that this title was something of a bait-and-switch. I scarcely addressed grade inflation at all, arguing that people who complain about grade inflation are actually concerned about grade compression.
I stand by that argument for certain contexts, but I recognize that in other contexts, people who raise alarms about grade inflation have legitimate concerns that are (at least partially) independent of the grade compression issue.
For example, when grades rise without associated learning gains, we encounter scenarios like what has transpired at UC-San Diego,where alarmingly high numbers of first-year students have been deemed “severely deficient” in math even though many received straight or nearly straight As in their high school math courses. Inevitably, many of these students will end up dropping out, which means they will have been poorly served by a system that did not prepare them for what they would encounter at the college level.
So, given that grade inflation is more than just a stand-in for grade compression, and it can cause real harm to students, I hope to redeem myself here. But first, what are we really talking about when we talk about grade inflation?
Oftentimes, inflation is used expansively (and misleadingly) to signify grades going up, full stop. People who define inflation this way are presumably skeptical that widescale increases in learning are possible; therefore, if grades go up, there must be something fishy going on. This is to me a cynical, elitist, and frankly depressing view. It is simply too short a step from not believing that all of one’s students can succeed to not rooting for all of one’s students to succeed.
To indulge my dismay further: I imagine people in this category tend to prefer conventional grading practices, and some may perceive alternative grading as a charade whose only real impact is to lower academic standards and to enable underprepared and underperforming students to advance beyond their station. Summing up: If you believe all this, you may very well work for a think tank, and if you don’t, you should seriously consider it (I’m sure they pay better than academia!).
A more accurate and useful definition of inflation is the phenomenon of students receiving higher grades without corresponding advances in learning and/or achievement. This definition makes explicit the allegation that standards are being lowered; it also acknowledges that when grades go up alongside genuine learning and/or achievement gains, inflation is not happening.
This definition also makes salient a core theme of this blog, namely that learning and achievement are not the same thing; hence the “and/or” language above. These terms are often used interchangeably—I suspect most often by people concerned about grade inflation—as if one-to-one correspondence exists between the quality of the deliverables students produce and the learning students take away from a course. As anyone who has read even a few posts in this blog will recognize, I believe this false equivalence is one of the most flawed myths of formal education.
There is plenty more to say about this false equivalence, but let’s hold off on that. Instead, I want to slightly revise our working definition. Let’s characterize inflation as the phenomenon of students receiving higher grades without earning them.Now, you might be thinking: “Hey Paul, isn’t replacing ‘learning and/or achievement’ with ‘earning’ even worse, collapsing the very distinction you just made?”
And yes, you would be right that “earning” does not resolve, and to some extent exacerbates, the challenge of distinguishing learning from achievement. But this is a temporary and admittedly crude framework meant to spotlight what really matters here and, hopefully, to clarify some underlying values that drive conflicting viewpoints. Call it a “productive oversimplification.”
In other words, given that learning is something of a black box, let’s set aside trying to determine what students learned in a course for now and focus on (relatively) observable phenomena. When we say that someone has earned something, we usually break that judgment into behavioral components that reflect a person’s effort and the outcomes of that effort. Applying this formulation to what it means to “earn” a grade, we have the effort students put into a course and the quality of what that effort produces.
For the sake of our thought experiment, then, let’s presume that quality and effort can both be measured in a straightforward way. (To be clear, quality and effort are less of a black box than learning, but in practice measuring both is also quite messy) This enables us to depict a matrix with four quadrants:
The Quality/Effort Matrix
In Quadrant One, we have students who produced what the instructor considers high-quality deliverables (based on whatever assignments, standards, and metrics are employed in that course), but who did not put much effort into these deliverables. Perhaps this is because the students already picked up the material from previous coursework or extracurricular experiences, or maybe they’re just really good at this stuff (let’s exclude for now students who may have committed undetected cheating).
Quadrant Two includes those students who produced high-quality deliverables and who clearly demonstrated conscientious effort leading to those deliverables. Quadrant Three is the reverse of Quadrant Two, where students neither produced high-quality outcomes nor put much effort into them. And then we have Quadrant Four, where students engaged the coursework in a conscientious and diligent way, but for whatever reason this process did not lead to high-quality outputs, again based on whatever designated standards the instructor had established.
With the basic contours of the matrix in place, let’s consider what it would mean for students in these different quadrants to receive a high grade. And, because the issue at hand is grade inflation, let’s assume we are talking about A-range (or no lower than high B) final course grades.
I hope the consensus view is that students in Quadrant Two have earned an A. In fact, I presume many educators would see Quadrant Two as the ideal scenario, one in which students have worked hard and, as a function of that effort, produced high-quality deliverables. Similarly, I hope we can agree that Quadrant Three is the least desirable place for students to be; if students in this quadrant are receiving high grades, this would be clear evidence of grade inflation.
So, let’s look again at the matrix with these two quadrants labeled accordingly:
The Quality/Effort Matrix (Updated)
Now, Quadrant Two might be the ideal, but the fact is that not all students will be in this quadrant all the time. In fact, it’s safe to say that virtually no individual student will always be in Quadrant Two. Given this reality, in which of the remaining two quadrants (if any) can we say that students have earned an A? I expect considerable difference of opinion here, which is why I’m interested in exploring this question in upcoming posts.
I am far less interested in producing a definitive (let alone correct) answer here than in exploring the implications of different answers people might pose. That is, by inviting educators (and other stakeholders in education) to consider their perspectives about Quadrant One, which prioritizes product over process, vs Quadrant Four, which prioritizes process over product, the matrix makes salient some of the values that shape people’s positions. In this way, the matrix helps people be more conscious of their own educational values and how these values might diverge from those of others. The matrix, then, cultivates assessment literacy. As a preview of what’s to come, I encourage readers to mull over this question: When students are not in Quadrant Two, which is inevitable at least some of the time for everyone and much of the time for the majority, would you rather they land in Quadrant One (high quality, low effort) or Quadrant Four (high effort, low quality)? I concede that the question “in which quadrant would you rather your students be” is not the same as “in which quadrant have students earned an A.” But this question about preferences is a good starting point. I imagine many readers will have an instinctual, gut-level response at hand, and (whether your answer came immediately or not) I urge you to explore why one answer might appeal over another. As we will see, how people respond to this question ties into the grades question. For now, happy mulling!
Teaching Inquiry 