Valen E. Johnson addresses the issue of grade inflation in the book, Grade Inflation: A Crisis in College Education (2003). He notes that grade inflation rewards mediocrity, discourages excellence and negatively impacts faculty’s ability to evaluate students. Johnson states that grade inflation is partly a result of the varying grading perspectives among faculty members at any given college. The author, who states that he views grading from a traditionalist’s perspective, finds the postmodern view of grading bizarre. He describes the postmodern view of grading as being less objective and having an emphasis on divergent representations of reality. Seven strategies for addressing the problem of grade inflation are described in the final chapter of the book. Please share your thoughts on grade inflation by clicking on the comments link.
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Center for Teaching and Learning Readers' Exchange 
September 26, 2008 at 12:39 am |
The issue of grade inflation is certainly a vexing one. On the one hand, JeffCo is a business and needs to be concerned with student retention, and we all know that “bad” grades are one of the first things to scare off our students. On the other hand, more generally speaking, college teachers often feel compelled to hold students to certain levels of rigor and excellence, but pressure to inflate grades–that is, pressure to make sure our students aren’t dissuaded by high expectations–invariably undermines a teacher’s efforts to “really teach”. It would seem that learning would truly begin if the students were challenged more, rather than allowed to pass through our program relatively unscathed. What to do, what to do? I have no answers, but I would love to hear what others are doing to maintain a high standard /and/ still retain students.