Grade Inflation-Is it an issue at your school?
Christopher M. Hearon
See below. This is from Amelia Lee who is the Executive Director of AKA. She’s writing an article on grade inflation and would like to mention opinions about it from various regions of the country. She won’t cite any specific person or school. I told her I’d shoot this out to you guys. Reply to the listserv, or to me, and I will make sure she gets your thoughts or experiences.
Side note, if your department is not affiliated with AKA, I encourage you to consider it: www.americankinesiology.org
Hi Chris, As Executive Director of the AKA I am expected to write a column for Kinesiology Today and I am thinking about a topic for this next issue. Want it to be something that will interest Department Chairs, and perhaps get some responses. I was thinking about the issue of grade inflation. There is a lot in the literature about this but I do not know how chairs are approaching it or if they are concerned at all.
I wanted to pick your brains on the issue. Was wondering if you could give me some of your thoughts from a Texas perspective. There are many reasons cited in the literature for recent grade inflation. Some I was aware of - like students needing a 3.0 to keep a scholarship or get into a graduate professional school, instructors giving high grades in hopes of getting a good student evaluation, grading on attendance, participation, and attitude. One interesting one to me was the emergence of a consumer-based culture in higher education. Students are paying more for a product every year and increasingly they want and get the reward of a good grade for their purchase.
There are some schools, like Harvard, that are making very specific policies on grading. You can have no more than 35% “A’s”. One university recently reported in the Chronicle that they took grading away from instructors and employed other to do the task!!
Anyway, if you have time would you give me some of your thoughts on the issue. In working with you on other projects I would guess that you do have some opinions. Is this an issue at your university and in your state? Are you concerned at all? Have you implemented any policies?
Thanks
Amelia
Amelia Lee, PhD
Executive Director
American Kinesiology Association
-CMH
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Christopher M. Hearon, Ph.D., FACSM
Professor and Department Chair
Coordinator, Human Performance Laboratory
Texas A&M University-Kingsville
Department of Health & Kinesiology
USPS (Letters and Packages):
700 University Blvd. (MSC 198)
Kingsville, TX 78363-8202
Packages via Commercial Carriers (FedEx, UPS):
Steinke PE Center #100
910 W. Avenue B
Kingsville, TX 78363
361-593-2141 (Fax)
Department of HKN Web Site:
http://www.tamuk.edu/cehp/hkn/
Christopher M. Hearon
Here was a reply I sent to her:
I am greatly concerned by this. But our situation has a different twist at the regional university level. We are being brutalized by our administration about our fresh-to-soph retention rate, as well as our 6 yr graduation rate. Since we are not Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, of UH, let alone any of the private schools in the state, our entry “standards” are far from those of…err..Rice. And, you know the old story, anyone who likes sports is declaring a degree in kinesiology. Unfortunately, the rigor of our programs do not match the stereotype that too many people have, especially in exercise science and pre-pt, and these students never make it through. So…when I say brutalized, I mean “The Department Chair will be held responsible for these LBB measures and his/her evaluation affected.” Seriously, and my faculty know that my job is on the line if these rates don’t go up, and I am a relatively popular department chair. So, the pressure is on…when in reality, there is nothing we can do. Unless of course they let us control admission into our program, which would mean our enrollment as the largest department on campus would drop like a rock. Nooooo…that’s unacceptable. The admin wants their cake (huge kinesiology department) and wants to eat it too (everyone is retained from year-to-year, and everyone graduates in 5 years.) And, they want everyone to be admitted so the University enrollment keeps pace with the other regional schools in South Texas.
My faculty feel the pressure to pass ‘em, and get ‘em out. However, they have not succumbed to the pressure because they know I do not expect that nor do I want it. And, I full well expect NOT to be renewed as department chair in 4 years when these LBB measures do not improve.
-CMH
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Christopher M. Hearon, Ph.D., FACSM
Professor and Department Chair
Coordinator, Human Performance Laboratory
Texas A&M University-Kingsville
Knudson, Duane V
Colleagues and Amelia,
At Texas State there is not much pressure on chairs unless their department is consistently an outlier in mean GPA. I feel more stress from a few students and faculty who think that standard are too high and too low, respectively. Many students think of high grades not representative of mastery or a standard of performance, but a commodity that they buy with tuition dollars or personal perception of effort/commitment. Some faculty believe some of their peers are too lenient in grading and academic rigor. I have much more stress from these personnel issues and department dynamics than from a perception that our department is guilty of grade inflation.
Duane
Steven R. Snowden
Here’s one for you. Admissions is sending over a kid who has been on probation seven times and suspended five and they want us to let him back in.
SS
Steven R. Snowden
Associate Professor & Head, Department of Kinesiology
Angelo State University
Member, Texas Tech University System
ASU Station #10903
San Angelo, TX 76909-0903
Phone: (325) 942-2173 ext.223 Fax: (325) 942-2129
mailto:ssno...@angelo.edu
From: txch...@googlegroups.com [mailto:txch...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Christopher M. Hearon
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2011 12:26 PM
To: txch...@googlegroups.com
Bonnette, Randy
Colleagues,
Our department does not have an issue with grade inflation. I am very fortunate to have a team that desires for their students to be challenged, but done in a way that is achievable and not just hard. Within that I have a full spectrum of courses that are typically the most difficult for our students down to some that are much easier (Exercise Physiology vs. Foundations of Kinesiology). However, even with Foundations we don’t have automatic A’s.
Also, thankfully I am not cursed with what Chris described at A&M Kingsville. That is just a crappy situation and just wrong to evoke that kind of pressure on him! At any rate, my dean actually praises our department and holds us up as a model for the other departments in the College of Education (COE). Our college definitely has a problem with grade inflation and he is addressing that, but kinesiology doesn’t. At our last graduation, for example, I counted the number of honors graduates in each college that was printed in the program to see the average number of honor grads in each college. The highest other than the COE was the College of Liberal Arts who had 19%. The COE had 43%! My dean told me he looked at the records and we have some COE professors who have NEVER given anything less than an A. They ain’t in kinesiology.
It would be interesting though Amelia to see what you come up with and put in your column.
randy
Randy Bonnette
Chair, Kinesiology
Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi
FAX (361)825-6076
"Students are not an interruption of our work, they are the purpose of it." Apple
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
Abraham Lincoln
Patty Donaldson
I have the standard, long-standing issues that go along with some kinesiology majors (i.e. athletes remaining eligible). Most of my "lecturers" are coaches and unless a student/athlete just quits coming to class, they will make at least a D... based on participation/attendance/etc.
PHED Instructor/Coordinator
Angelina College
3500 S. First
Lufkin, TX 75904
office: 936-633-5435
cell: 214-507-1872
Do what you can... with what you have... where you are...
* Theodore Roosevelt *
Bonnette, Randy
Sent from my iPhone