When David Gallahue graduated in 1964 from the IU School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, he was the top student in his graduating class with a grade point average of 3.28. Now the school's dean, Gallahue expressed disbelief at the high grades both at the school and at the University.\n"Today the average GPA in the school of HPER is about 3.44," Gallahue said. "So I would have been below average, and I guess I don't like to think of myself as below average."\nWithout a doubt, grades across the University and many colleges around the country have increased for at least the past few decades, and in the past 10 years grades at IU have continued to climb. According to data compiled by the Indiana Daily Student from IU's grade distribution Web site, the average grade awarded in undergraduate courses by medium to large departments (course numbers less than 500 in departments awarding at least 500 GPA grades per academic year) has increased from 2.91 in the 1994-1995 academic year to 3.08 in 2003-2004, and the total number of A's increased from 33.8 percent to 41.4 percent.\nBut opinions vary widely among faculty on whether the grade increase actually represents lower standards, and whether it is an area of great concern.\nFor many professors, grade inflation is a problem that can get out of hand and needs to be monitored carefully. As grades continue to get higher, the grade distributions become more compressed -- making it more difficult to distinguish student achievement.\n"I think something needs to be done to stop this upward creep or grades will become meaningless," said Joseph Steinmetz, chairman of the Department of Psychology. "You will get to the point where you won't be able to tell anybody apart."\nGrade inflation -- or grade compression -- is also a concern to some students. \nSophomore Amanda Loving, a pre-nursing major, said she would not want others to get undeserved A's in one of her classes by virtue of the instructor awarding high grades.\n"It would be great if everyone could work hard and get all A's, but obviously that's not how the school system works. I don't think A's should be handed out to people just because they tried really hard," Loving said.\nSenior Paige Deck, an education major, said she would not be so concerned about people receiving undeserved A's in her classes because of high grade distributions. "If I got an A, I probably wouldn't worry about it. I might be upset a little bit because I know I put more time into it, but I probably wouldn't think of it because I got my A. I would be fine with that," Deck said.\nIn an effort to curb grade inflation, some department chairs and deans examine the grade distributions of their faculty members and might question them if their grades seem too far out of line.\nGallahue said he cannot directly tell his faculty members how to grade because of their academic freedom, but he will at times ask for justification.\n"What I have done is try to create cognitive dissonance among our faculty by showing them what their GPA is and asking them to do a gut check. 'Are they doing the right thing?'" Gallahue said.\nMarc Dollinger, chairman of the undergraduate program of the Kelley School of Business, said his school also looks out for grade distributions that may be too low, but often such vigilance is not necessary.\n"Department chairs will be made aware of this by the students and their parents, so they won't need to investigate. The investigation will land on their door," Dollinger said.
Increased pressure
The willingness of students and parents to challenge grades, said several professors, causes pressure on faculty to give higher grades and likely contributes to grade inflation.\nSteinmetz said he has noticed many more parents challenging grades in the last few years. \n"They would say, 'My kid worked harder than this and deserves a higher grade even though he failed these tests,'" Steinmetz said.\nClancy Clements, director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, said he thinks there is more of a culture of entitlement now among students making them more willing to contest a grade.\n"They are taught if they want something, they should get it," Clements said. "Students are more proactive about their grades than they used to be."\nGallahue said some instructors have given up on resisting grade inflation because it takes away from the love of their research and subject matter.\n"A lot of us are sick and tired of fighting some of the battles," Gallahue said. "To have standards and to have high standards is sometimes difficult from that standpoint."\nKatharine Byers, associate professor and Bloomington bachelor's of social work program director at the IU School of Social Work, said she has observed more student challenges to grades compared to five years ago. She said grades should be based on performance and not just effort, but there is a notion among students that if they work hard, they should receive an A.\n"I could work really hard to be an opera singer, but I would never be a good one because I can't carry a tune," Byers said. "It's the final product that really makes the difference. I should not receive an 'A' in opera."
Increase doesn't mean inflation
While many professors deplore the higher grades and possibly lower grading standards, some professors, such as Sociology Professor Brian Powell, see other explanations for the observed increases in grades.\n"The fact there is a change in grades doesn't mean there is grade inflation," Powell said.\nPowell has studied grade inflation for the past several years examining possible factors for increasing grades and faculty perceptions of grade inflation.\n"Do I think grades have increased a bit? Yes," Powell said. "Do I think it has increased a huge amount or the amount is really that appreciable or that it can be explained away? I think a large portion of it can be explained away and can be explained away for things other than people being 'easier.'\nPowell cited withdrawal rates, amount of freedom in choosing classes, class size and distribution of courses within a department among possible factors for increased grades. For instance, increased enrollment in service-learning courses, internships and career-building courses, which Powell said should be graded differently by their nature, would alter the overall grade distributions.\n"We're really creating courses that help students. If we are doing more of those, and I think we should be doing more of those, then grades may be going up, but grades for other courses aren't going up," Powell said. "I'm not saying that any one of these factors by itself is responsible for the increase in grades. What I am saying is that we can't just say 'look at this big increase.' We really have to decompose that increase."\nJunior Amy Gaither, a returning student studying to be a technical assistant, has noticed drastic differences in her classes compared to 20 years ago when she first enrolled at IU. She said it is much easier to learn course material now because of a greater amount of academic support from the University.\n"You get more instruction," Gaither said. "(Back then) you went to lecture, you went to lab, but you didn't have any discussion classes, and now they just offer a lot more office hours than they used to."\nShe said advances in computer technology have also made a big impact in making access to information much easier.\n"You don't necessarily have to read the chapter. You can go into Google and Yahoo and find specific subjects and read on it," Gaither said. "It seems there were more students attending class 20 years ago because back then you didn't have a computer to look up the professor's notes."\nAlthough Gaither said the primary reason getting high grades is easier for students is the access to information, she said she noticed that curving tests is more common today.\n"You feel kind of cheated when they have a curve," she said.\nJillian Kinzie is an associate director for the IU Center for Postsecondary Research and National Survey of Student Engagement Institute. She said some changes over the past several years that could lead to higher grades include the number of classes involving group work and service projects, which are more subjective and difficult to grade.\n"There has been a huge shift in different pedagogy used. Service learning didn't exist 10 to 15 years ago in the way that it exists now on college campuses," Kinzie said. "It was easier to explain to students why they earned a particular grade."
Are grades a good measure?
Kinzie said the increased subjectivity of grading and increased opportunity for students to demonstrate what they know could have led to increased grades, but she is not concerned about it because she does not believe grades are a good measure of learning.\n"If I believed in grades as a measure, I might be more concerned about saving it or reclaiming it or going back to the good old days when a C was a C, but I don't think they are that great a measure," Kinzie said.\nFrank Guthrie, an associate instructor and doctoral student in the School of Education, agreed the problem is more with the overemphasis on grades rather than with grade inflation. He said grades encourage conformity of thought and inhibit creativity.\n"We all learned how to play the game of schooling, and if the professor contradicts an original thought that we have, and if we rebel against it, he's going to give us a lower grade. Usually good students realize, 'Well I'll just play the game. I'll just tell the professor what he wants to hear,'" Guthrie said.\nJunior Laura Romashko, a management major at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, said she agreed that too much focus can be put on grades. She said she is not a good test-taker and tests are not a good indication of what she knows.\n"Your main focus of the class is trying to pull off a good grade when you should be here to learn," Romashko said.\n-- Contact staff writer Steven Chung at stchung@indiana.edu.
