As someone who did not attend high school in the United States, I quickly discovered an interesting trait prevalent among students and professors—the unnecessary and disproportionate focus on “mean” and “mean.” The “median” grade on a quiz, midterm, or similar assessment. I have long believed that “median” grade is a mathematical formula that has no legitimate existence in defining grade thresholds.
Many courses at Duke—particularly the large introductory lecture courses—are characterized by a statistical “curve,” the precise shape of which depends on the mean and median scores. Courses graded on a curve are often too large to truly embrace new pedagogies and alternative grading systems that are only feasible in small class settings – unless such courses lower academic standards. Note that peer institutions such as MIT have long since abolished curve grading.
One must recognize the inherent arbitrariness of requiring students’ grades to fit an arbitrarily chosen statistical distribution and determining the proportion of students who receive A’s or A-‘s. Curve grading tends to discourage collaborative efforts among students because it removes any incentive for students to help their peers, as doing so may put them at a severe disadvantage if they have already solved a given assignment.
This creates a culture in which help from a teaching assistant is as guarded as a rare Pokémon—where getting beyond the curve is more important than the degree of learning.
Of course, Duke’s courses tend to guarantee minimum grades based on certain percentage thresholds, such as 93% or above in Trinity College of Arts and Sciences as A’s. In theory, this argument might work. However, many course assessments are designed so that predefined numerical thresholds for absolute scoring are impractical given the difficulty of the assignment and the time constraints of the exam environment. etc.
There is a simple remedy: we recalibrate the assessment criteria, setting the highest score achieved in the exam to the new 100%, and setting the grades according to the new range. For example, a top scorer with a grade of 90% or above should receive at least an A-. Of course, similar to the current system, grade boundaries can be adjusted and students on the left tail of the curve can move up.
The more prominent concern is the lack of any compelling reason to care about average performance. One of the hallmarks of the current scoring system is that it creates unwarranted concern about the median score.
There were many times when I behaved badly. But if I determine the peak performance of another person who, like me, is also a full-time student at Duke, I can calculate exactly how much I can improve. Pursuing the pinnacle of what is already a reality, already embodied by other Duke students, is worth more than a purely theoretical possibility.
If the current grading system does not emphasize the median score, then why should anyone be satisfied (or dissatisfied) with the fact that their performance is “five points above the median”? No sprinter can compare to the strength of the “average” competitor in any NCAA tournament. There’s a reason athleticism is measured as negative deviation from peak performance.
Of course, even if the chance of someone being as good as Usain Bolt or Kelvin Kiptum is zero, it does pay to know how far one falls short of the paragon of excellence. The two reasons to dream of climbing Everest are, first, it exists to climb, and second, it exists to climb Everest. You have been climbed and conquered.
There were countless areas where I found myself not talented enough to achieve anything, but I struggled to know how big the gaps were and which ones were worth the time and effort to make partial improvements.
Duke is an elite school, but most of the coveted achievements rarely take Duke’s average into account. If you want to get into your favorite law school, or get your favorite scholarship to study in the UK, you must have no illusions: not only are they indifferent to the median, but they are unswervingly looking for the top, the best. Brilliant university. . Even though Duke is a top undergraduate institution, Harvard Medical School is still competitive. Above-average knowledge in organic chemistry at Duke neither tangibly improves your prospects nor provides a rational basis for emotional comfort.
Of course, measures of talent vary widely in different areas of knowledge, and I often regret my lack of certain talents. The diversity of skills across domains provides no reason for complacency. Duke should avoid creating a scenario in which one’s happiness is simply the perverse excitement of outdoing one’s dorm neighbors and past lovers’ roommates, which means grading reform—especially in large introductory courses, which often It pits students against students and friends against friends. This can be achieved without diminishing academic quality and rigor – all I ask is that unnecessary adversarial competition between students be prevented.
A person’s real competition should be with himself. The implementation of the assessment scheme did away with the concept of curve scoring and instead used absolute scoring scaled to the highest score, creating a situation where the response to 94% should be the same regardless of whether the scaled mean was 94%. to 67% or 97%. In that utopian learning realm, the only opponent is oneself, and the only effort is to inspire personal progress.
Angikar Ghosal is a senior at Trinity College. His column usually runs on alternating Mondays.
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