Timeline for Is it valid to modify a student's exam grade if you feel they did not earn it?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 19, 2020 at 9:15 | comment | added | untreated_paramediensis_karnik | I agree with this answer. Because as is, that poor student has been graded DIFFERENTLY than all other students, because it's the only student whose score was influenced by another grader. This is clearly unethical, there is no way around this fact. This sucks. | |
| May 19, 2020 at 7:12 | comment | added | Kostya_I | "There was a standard set at the beginning of the course." - that is simply not true. Suppose I make one of the four problems on the test so difficult that only 10% of the students are able to make progress. For the rest 90%, this will bring the required score of 73% effectively close to 100%. That's also perfectly ethical, and can be done the night before the exam. Therefore, in practice, nothing has been set in the beginning of the course, and any arguments claiming otherwise are invalid. | |
| May 18, 2020 at 14:10 | comment | added | Dan Romik | no worries, we can agree to disagree, though I think your point of view is very reasonable. Thanks for a fun debate :-) | |
| May 18, 2020 at 14:07 | comment | added | Joel Hines | Unfortunately, I think we won't see eye to eye here. My point is completely unrelated to the other options, so I can't argue them. If he told the students at the beginning of the semester he wasn't going to grade on a curve, and then arbitrarily threw in a curve on the final exam, then my point would still hold. We create contracts with students to define our expectations. They can be as vague or as specific as you want, but you have to stick with the expectations you laid out for your students. At the very least, they need advance notice of changes to those expectations. | |
| May 18, 2020 at 13:54 | comment | added | Dan Romik | Sorry, I’m unconvinced. You cannot weigh the ethics of an action without considering the alternatives. If I am forced to choose between actions X, Y and Z, you are not going to convince me that I must avoid X by arguing that X is “flatly unethical” but refusing to discuss the possibility that Y and Z may also be unethical and that therefore the correct question is really about weighing the trade offs between the different actions. (But you may end up convincing me if you are willing to discuss that more nuanced question.) | |
| May 18, 2020 at 13:42 | comment | added | Joel Hines | Yes, and we can argue from here to the end of time whether or not grading on a curve and what not is unethical, but that ignores my reasoning for why this is flatly unethical. The rules set up were changed at the witching hour for this student. While I would argue that being this arbitrary is always more unethical than grading on a curve, that is completely beside my main issue with the actions taken. | |
| May 18, 2020 at 13:38 | comment | added | Dan Romik | ... of the standard solutions to the quandary in the question. My conclusion is therefore that it’s not a black or white issue. Professors agonize over failing and passing students because it’s such a consequential decision, where a mistake on either the side of wrongly failing or wrongly passing someone can be harmful to them. Each strategy for dealing with these decisions has problematic aspects to it and can be seen as at least mildly unethical in its own way. Perhaps the supervisor’s strategy is more unethical than the other options, I don’t know. But “flatly unethical”? I’m not seeing it. | |
| May 18, 2020 at 13:32 | comment | added | Dan Romik | The point of my “it’s complicated” argument is that while the behavior is problematic (I called it “ethically fraught”), the alternatives are also problematic in different ways. Thus, whether it’s perceived as ethical or not depends on the framing of the question. Suppose I asked “is it ethical for a professor to give a student a grade the professor sincerely does not believe, after a careful evaluation of the student’s work, that the student has earned?” I bet a lot of people would have a problem with that. A lot of people have ethical problems with grading on a curve, which is another ... | |
| May 18, 2020 at 13:22 | review | First posts | |||
| May 18, 2020 at 23:29 | |||||
| May 18, 2020 at 13:21 | history | answered | Joel Hines | CC BY-SA 4.0 |