Re: +/- Grading Schemes
William Sjostrom, Univ. College Cork (STEC8033@iruccvax.ucc.ie)
15 Mar 1995 11:48:21 +0000 (GMT)
When I was in graduate school, a more finely graded system was used,
running from 4.0 to 0.7 in increments of 0.1, with 0.0 awarded for failure.
Marking was simpler. It isn't clear to me that it had any effect on
student complaints. On the one hand, far more students were near a
borderline. On the other hand, the benefits of complaining were smaller,
because typically even if you were at a borderline, the most you could
pick up was 0.1 rather than a whole point. I suspect it increased the
number of complaints, because students seem to have very low time
values after the end of term (although their time is valuable during
term, so they can't make it to class).
Bill Sjostrom
University College Cork