Higher Education Malpractice: curving grades

If there is one thing that university faculty and administrators could do today to demonstrate their commitment to inclusion, not to mention teaching and learning over sorting and status, it would be to ban curve-based, norm-referenced grading. Many obstacles exist to the effective inclusion and success of students from underrepresented (and underserved) groups in science and related programs.  Students and faculty often, and often correctly, perceive large introductory classes as “weed out” courses preferentially impacting underrepresented students. In the life sciences, many of these courses are “out-of-major” requirements, in which students find themselves taught with relatively little regard to the course’s relevance to bio-medical careers and interests. Often such out-of-major requirements spring not from a thoughtful decision by faculty as to their necessity, but because they are prerequisites for post-graduation admission to medical or graduate school. “In-major” instructors may not even explicitly incorporate or depend upon the materials taught in these out-0f-major courses – rare is the undergraduate molecular biology degree program that actually calls on students to use calculus or a working knowledge of physics, despite the fact that such skills may be relevant in certain biological contexts – see Magnetofiction – A Reader’s Guide.  At the same time, those teaching “out of major” courses may overlook the fact that many (and sometimes most) of their students are non-chemistry, non-physics, and/or non-math majors.  The result is that those teaching such classes fail to offer a doorway into the subject matter to any but those already comfortable with it. But reconsidering the design and relevance of these courses is no simple matter.  Banning grading on a curve, on the other  hand, can be implemented overnight (and by fiat if necessary). 

 So why ban grading on a curve?  First and foremost, it would put faculty and institutions on record as valuing student learning outcomes (perhaps the best measure of effective teaching) over the sorting of students into easy-to-judge groups.  Second, there simply is no pedagogical justification for curved grading, with the possible exception of providing a kludgy fix to correct for poorly designed examinations and courses. There are more than enough opportunities to sort students based on their motivation, talent, ambition, “grit,” and through the opportunities they seek after and successfully embraced (e.g., through volunteerism, internships, and independent study projects). 

The negative impact of curving can be seen in a recent paper by Harris et al,  (Reducing achievement gaps in undergraduate general chemistry …), who report a significant difference in overall student inclusion and subsequent success based on a small grade difference between a C, which allows a student to proceed with their studies (generally as successfully as those with higher grades) and a C-minus, which requires them to retake the course before proceeding (often driving them out of the major).  Because Harris et al., analyzed curved courses, a subset of students cannot escape these effects.  And poor grades disproportionately impact underrepresented and underserved groups – they say explicitly “you do not belong” rather than “how can I help you learn”.   

Often naysayers disparage efforts to improve course design as “dumbing down” the course, rather than improving it.  In many ways this is a situation analogous to blaming patients for getting sick or not responding to treatment, rather than conducting an objective analysis of the efficacy of the treatment.  If medical practitioners had maintained this attitude, we would still be bleeding patients and accepting that more than a third are fated to die, rather than seeking effective treatments tailored to patients’ actual diseases – the basis of evidence-based medicine.  We would have failed to develop antibiotics and vaccines – indeed, we would never have sought them out. Curving grades implies that course design and delivery are already optimal, and the fate of students is predetermined because only a percentage can possibly learn the material.  It is, in an important sense, complacent quackery.

Banning grading on a curve, and labelling it for what it is – educational malpractice – would also change the dynamics of the classroom and might even foster an appreciation that a good teacher is one with the highest percentage of successful students, e.g. those who are retained in a degree program and graduate in a timely manner (hopefully within four years). Of course, such an alternative evaluation of teaching would reflect a department’s commitment to construct and deliver the most engaging, relevant, and effective educational program. Institutional resources might even be used to help departments generate more objective, instructor-independent evaluations of learning outcomes, in part to replace the current practice of student-based opinion surveys, which are often little more than measures of popularity.  We might even see a revolution in which departments compete with one another to maximize student inclusion, retention, and outcomes (perhaps even to the extent of applying pressure on the design and delivery of “out of major” required courses offered by other departments).  

“All a pipe dream” you might say, but the available data demonstrates that resources spent on rethinking course design, including engagement and relevance, can have significant effects on grades, retention, time to degree, and graduation rates.  At the risk of being labeled as self-promoting, I offer the following to illustrate the possibilities: working with Melanie Cooper at Michigan State University, we have built such courses in general and organic chemistry and documented their impact, see Evaluating the extent of a large-scale transformation in gateway science courses.

Perhaps we should be encouraging students to seek out legal representation to hold institutions (and instructors) accountable for detrimental practices, such as grading on a curve.  There might even come a time when professors and departments would find it prudent to purchase malpractice insurance if they insist on retaining and charging students for ineffective educational strategies.(1)  

Acknowledgements: Thanks to daughter Rebecca who provided edits and legal references and Melanie Cooper who inspired the idea. Educate! image from the Dorian De Long Arts & Music Scholarship site.

(1) One cannot help but wonder if such conduct could ever rise to the level of fraud. See, e.g., Bristol Bay Productions, LLC vs. Lampack, 312 P.3d 1155, 1160 (Colo. 2013) (“We have typically stated that a plaintiff seeking to prevail on a fraud claim must establish five elements: (1) that the defendant made a false representation of a material fact; (2) that the one making the representation knew it was false; (3) that the person to whom the representation was made was ignorant of the falsity; (4) that the representation was made with the intention that it be acted upon; and (5) that the reliance resulted in damage to the plaintiff.”).