Letter grades: Are we deceiving our students?

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provocative opinion Letter Grades Are We Deceiving Our Students? Vincent M. Stumpo West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506 "But he has nothing on," said a little child. "Oh. listen to the innocent." said its father: 'and one person whispered to the other what the child had said. "He has nothing an; a child says he has nothing on!" "But he has nothing on!" at last cried all the people." The Emperor's New Clothes Hans Chris! an Andersen

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I t is becoming increasinelv -.more difficult to scan the newspapers or the television stations without encountering a report on one of the myriad educational studies recently completed, or the dismal student results of the latest national standardized test. The conclusion is a s inescapable as i t is foreboding: the American academic system, at every level, is failing miserably. I amin my early 30's. I have been tutoringor teaching all of my life. I like to think that I still have the enthusiasm, motivation, and idealism of a mokie. Education always has l The love of been sacred to me. almost a ~ e r s o n arelieion. ideas nurtured me'as a child,'as i t still does today Recently thoueh. mv faith wae shaken bv an excellent newsDaDer . c o m m e n t 4 &at artize 'kitten by David R. ~ o l i t This appeared in the February 4, 1990, issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer was entitled, "Even America's best and brightest aren't that good". During my first year as a professional teacher, I was quite dismayed by the pwr performances of chemistry students a t a prestigious college-preparatory school. At the semester's end, the letter grades I issued reflected student achievement or lack thereof. Accordingly, there were more D and F erades than in nast semesters. This ~ o i nwas t repeatedly brought to my attention by administrators, parents. and students. When I informed the concerned parties thatthe students receiving low grades simply did not master the skills of the course. thcv reacted as though this was a secondary issue. ~ 1 t h d u ~ h " nunconcerne~ ot with the meager performances of these pupils, this lobby group seemed more focused on the issue that poor grades would make i t more difficult for these children to gain admission to the primary college of their choice, rather than the fact that these students had not developed essential skills. I was encouraged by some members of this group to reeonsider these grades with reasoning such as (paraphrasing!:

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T h i s is an excellent schwl. Our students should not receive substandard grades. It takes time for a new teacher to realize and accept the limitations of students. Goad grades are necessary to get into gaod colleges. .Most of these students will never use math and science again. I have been successful in life; I make a great deal of money, hut I don't know a thing about chemistry. (Mostly from the parents.)

I must admit that these arguments did, to a certain extent, alter my conception of course grades. Perhaps I was expecting too much from my pupils. Perhaps my examinations were simply too difficult. No matter how I attempted to view the situation, however, I remained unsettled by the performances of many of my students. Noting my extreme concern over this situation, veteran teachers encouraged me to consider the many students who had earned high grades. This, the "glass is half-filled" not "half-empty" analom. was essential in overcomine the denression and frustration of my first year. It supplied the perspective I needed a t that time to remain in the teaching ~rofession. Boldt's enkhteninz article, however, has reignited and ' wonder focused the concerns of my rookie year. I nw whether the fraction oftheglass that is filled isactually far less than one-hall: In his in\.estieat~on.IMdt contacted the ) princeton, New JerEducational Testing Service ( E ~ s in sev. and spoke with Archie E. LaPointe. ~ r i n c i ~author al of a ~ookletentitled"A world of ~ifferen&". T& document contains data from the International Association of Education Achievement, headquartered in The Netherlands. When tests were given to the most advanced, college-preparatory students of math and science in Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, Hungary, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Scotland, Sweden, and the United States, the results were both astonishing and embarrassing

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ETS's Booklets A World of Differences and The Science Reporl CardShowed:

"The most ab1eU.S. students scored the lowest of all ofthese countries in algebra and were among the lowest in calculus." '"Advanced science students in the U.S. ranked last in bialogy and performed behind students from most countries in chemistry and physics." "Average Japanese students achieved higher than the top five percent of the US. students in college-preparatory mathematics." "(Thestudies also indicated that) the more complex and advanced the concepts being tested, the worse American students do in the comparison." The heretofore encouraging notion that my best students had mastered an appreciable amount of math and science; the very thought t h a t had inspired and consoled me through years of teaching, seems now only to have been a soothing and convenient rationalization. When I consider all the students that I have given "A" grades in physics, chemistry, and mathematics, I begin to wonder whether their performances were truly excellent? And the "B" and "C" grades, were they truly above average and average, respectively? The facts from ETS suggest otherwise. Apparently, the American system has failed in the education of all of its students, not only the traditional pmblem segments, such as the impoverished inner-city youths, but also students from middle- and upper-class envimnVolume 69 Number 6 June 1992

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ments, many of whom come from schools with reputations for academic excellence. If this is so, then there is a question that seems central to understanding and rectifying this unacceptable situation: If, as a nation, our students, even our very best, are performing more and more poorly on national and international standardized tests, then why do we, as instructors, continue to issue roughly the same proportions of A, B, C, D, and F grades in the courses we teach? If the performance levels of our students are quite poor, and declining, then why are their w u n e grades not consistent with these realities? To put it simply, if our students test a t or near the bottom in math and science, then why do instructors not give many more failing grades in their courses? Excellence is often achieved only if it is required. In my opinion, one of the major flaws in the American educational system is that students are rewarded with course grades that do not accurately reflect their true skill levels. This occurs for a variety of reasons, including a belief on the part of many instructors that course grade profiles should contain more A's and B's than D's and F's or a t the very least they should be Gaussian (relative grading); external pressures on instructors from parents, administrators and students, whether stated or implied, to maintain high student grades; a lack of detailed knowledge of the subject matter by some teachers; underestimating the true potential of the students; an unwillingness on the part of some instructors to reformulate course syllabuses, write new tests, and supply the extra tutoring required should higher standards be adopted; and a truly understandable, althoueh in this case. mvooic and oountemroductive, humanis& desire to make t h i students hap&. One of the more sienificant exolanations for our failure to educate ~merioan-youthin science and math, however, lies with the types of examinations that instructors compose. Within a brief time, a teacher realizes the strengths and weaknesses of a group of pupils. The instructor must then decide (consciously or subconsciously) whether to write examination questions that will avoid student weaknesses, or compose tests that will expose these problem areas so that the pupils may become aware of their deficiencies. Only after an individual becomes conscious of h i s h e r weaknesses, may helshe attempt to overcome them. If a football player suffers a knee injury, he must diligently work to rehabilitate the joint, despite the fact that the knee is weak, and the exercises are painful. If the player avoids this process, he will not be able to compete. This ~rincinleis valid in academia as well. For exam~le.it experience that students oRen memorize s'cihas deen entific eouations for the ournose of calculatine numerical answers t o homework and examination questions. Unfortunately, the pupils frequently comprehend neither the physical principles upon which the formulas are based, nor the significance of the numerical answers they obtain. Recently, I gave an examination in a General Chemistry class in which I asked, using a multiple-choice format, the following two, apparently simple, and certainly related, thermodynamic questions:

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(1) Determine AE for a process in which q = 3.57 kcal and lu = 9.81kcal. (2) What will happen to the internal energy of a system that performs work under adiabatic conditions?

177 out of 231 (77%) students were able to answer the first question correctly, while only 56 (24%)were successful on ouestion 2. Obviouslv. manv students memorized the mathematical statement of t h l f r s t law of thermodynamics (AE= q - w that appeared in their textbook and on the blackboard, but despite lengthy classroom discussion. few nondered its sienificance. These two questions were placed on the same exam, and the class results were

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Journal of Chemical Education

conveyed to the students to emphasize the point that memorization without comprehension is not an effective strategy for learning. I have found that by continually demonstratine this realitv (usuallv with auestion sets more complex than the t~ermodym~mic qukstions above), and re~eatedlvreviewine essential conce~ts.I have eraduallv bekn ableto convin& students of the'need to co~emplatk the tonics covered in class more deenlv. ." Sadly, I suspect that in previous science courses many of these students were able toanswer test questionscorrectly bv simolv entering numbers into eouasons that were oft&time&eaningress to them. 1f thi's is so, then these students were rewarded for successfullv maninulatine calculator buttons, without being required to master the concepts that give relevance to these mathematical exercises. If we are to succeed in teaching science, we must stress both mathematical execution and conceptual understanding. Either one alone is unacceptable. Another maior weakness is what I refer to as the "Aleorithm ~ e t h o of d science education. Instructors often vide students with a series of steps to execute in order to answer certain questions. The students blindly perform such ooerations. arrivine at the "correct" answers with lib tle more conceptual understanding than a computer programmed with an equivalent algorithm. A trivial, but frequently encountered example of the "Algorithm Method" is found in the electronic configuration of the elements. We have all seen the Aufbau order of the atomic orbitals disolaved with transverse arrows indicating the relative energies of the orbitals. Students are frequently told to determine the total number of electrons in the element and fill the orbitals by following the arrows. The students are then asked to give the electronic configuration of fluorine, perhaps. Most students, following the simple algorithm will respond appropriately However, more probing questions, ouestions which freouentlv do not eet asked. would reveal that these students have little conception of energy quantization; of the probabilistic nature of atomic orbitals; of why p, d, and f orbital systems are not found in every ene r w level: of whv the numbers of eauivalent s. D. d.. and f ori;itals in an ap"propriate energy level are 1,3, 5, and 7, respectively; of why the 2p orbitals are characterized by higher energy than a 2s orbital for a multi-electron atom, when both have the same energy quantum number; of why a 4s orbital is actually of lower energy than a 3d orbital for potassium; or of the insights into the chemistw of an element that can be gainedfrom the electronic configuration. Instructors are often satidied if a student can state that fluorine is 1s' 2s' 20" ,hut too often do not ask deeoer ouestions to determine if a pupil can interpret this code and extract essential information. Since the algorithms allow the students to answer test questions correctly, the students often do not ask for more. Other areas of student weakness include problems that implicitly involve unit conversions, problems that involve more than one logical andlor mathematical step, questions that explore the interrelationships between topics, questions based on the interpretations of graphically displayed data, and problems that require the student to apply their knowledge to a previously uninvestigated situation. Unfortunately, questions such as these, problems that require the students to think, do not frequently constitute a significant nercentaee of the tests we administer in our courses. And Ghy not? The reality of the situation is that even when teachers are ohiloso~hicallvinclined to write challeneine examinations: they k e n do not do so because of the ife& that ~otentiallvlower student erades will eenerate nressure krom admk&trators, pare& and stu>ents, making the instructors'lives unoleasant, and oossiblv . ieonardizincr -. their careers. I have had numerous teachers, a t every level

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from elementary school to university, privately venlfy this last statement. Apparently, there exists an unwritten, and frequently unmentioned code in education, which a d s to limit the number of poor grades assigned in any given course, regardless ofthe skill levels of the pupils. So rather than dace themselves in such an uncomfortable position, teach& oRen opt to write less demanding examinations. With such watered-down tests, student grades are observed to be satisfactory or good, and the fact that student skills are underdeveloped goes unnoticed. . For our pupils to soar to new heights of academic excellence, questions that expose their deficiencies must become a larger portion of our examinations. This should not be viewed as unkind, but rather, as an educational strategy that is in the best long-term interest of the pupils. Students, like a current, will often choose the path of least resistance. It is. therefore. our res~onsibilitvto set our examination standards higher, so t h k studenis will be motivated to achieve to the full extent of their abilities. The time for a tough love approach to education is a t hand. Unless educators assume such a posture, we will continue to teach our students only the skills of taking and surviving science courses, while teaching them far too little actual science, and requiring them to develop far too little reasoning ability; thereby, passing them through our educational system with underdeveloped or nonexistent skills. Perhaps I am still too young and too naive. Perhaps I am far too idealistic. But I remain convinced that the vouth of America can h inspired to academic achievements equal to those of their international veers. This will not hamen. pupils with a mo& acthough, until course grades curate assessment of their verformances. Telling our students that they continually perform poorly on national and international tests, while simultaneously granting them deceptively inflated grades is not only inconsistent, but also it robs the students of their motivation; thus, prohibiting them from attaining their true potentials.

These necessary changes do not require excessive funding or implementation time. Instructon must simply upmade the level of the material which thev cover in class. compose more probing and cumulative test questions, and abandon the strict adherence to a Gaussian made distribution. (Relative scaling actually allows the &dents, rather than the instructor, to set the standards for the course!) Such alterations surely will meet some resistance. Some educators will be reluctant to adjust their routines and standards, optinginstead to maintain the status quo. Such inertia must be overcome. however, because our present educational approach simply does not work. In addition to the resolve of the teachers. the suovort of school administrators and parents also is rebuired.~dministrators must have the courage and the vision to insist on higher academic standards. They must back teachers who do likewise. despite a votentially rocky, although temporary, transkion period,-as students andparent