Volume CXXXIII, Number 13 January 25, 2002 f

Explaining grade creep
DOROTHEA HERREINER AND TA HERRERA
FACULTY CONTRIBUTORS

Elsewhere in this week's Orient, Professors DeCoster and Hornsten discuss negative consequences of grade inflation: Diminished ability of employers to differentiate between more and less promising candidates; increased reliance on non-academic measures of success; and reduced incentives for top students to excel. While acknowledging David Vail's findings (also in this issue) that different faculty members have different conceptions of the meaning and purpose of grades, it is nonetheless important to understand why a widespread increase in grades, or "grade creep," has occurred over the past years.

As an analogy, consider a crowded football stadium in which an eager fan in the front row stands up to see slightly better. Those seated behind this fan, their view obstructed, also stand. This process propagates to the back of the stadium. The end result: Everyone can see exactly as well as they could before the standing process began, but now everyone is standing and, presumably, less comfortable. While a given person sees a benefit in standing up-regardless of whether others are standing or not-that individual does not face the cost (an obstructed view) imposed on others. It is this "externality," or ignored cost, that leads to the socially undesirable outcome where all are standing.

Similarly, grade inflation tends to arise from individual incentives. While individual faculty are the ultimate arbiters of grades in the short run, they are guided by the grading conventions of their respective departments. Each of these groups benefits from increasing grades slightly, irrespective of others' grading policies, but does not personally face the full social costs of grade inflation. Grade inflation has a tendency to occur because there are numerous incentives in favor of, and very few against, the progressive inflation of grades at these different levels.

Some students put subtle or overt pressure on faculty to increase their grades in order to increase their success in the job market or graduate school admissions, or to assure their parents of their achievement. Students also "vote with their registration cards" to some extent: all else equal, they are attracted to classes that give the highest grades for the least amount of effort. Assuming equal quality of instruction by two different professors or departments, and equal interest in the subject matter, prospective students are attracted to the course or major where good grades are easier to come by. They can thus allocate more of their time to the myriad extracurricular obligations- social, athletic, or other?our students undertake.

Individual faculty members have a strong incentive to inflate grades. It is easier for a professor to acquiesce in any given case than to deal with an anxious, even angry student. David Vail's survey of the faculty suggests that teaching evaluations are seen (by at least some faculty) as positively affected by relaxed grading standards and that the classroom environment is more congenial when stress about grades is reduced. In addition, students appear to be achieving at a high level as grades increase nominally, which reflects positively upon the professor.

At a departmental level, course enrollments and the number of majors are often used as the basis for addition or retention of faculty positions, as well as for allocation of other resources. Competition for students causes departments to relax grading standards; the grading reputation of departments and individual faculty likely spreads quickly and is incorporated into students' selection of courses and majors. Students receiving high grades in a department's introductory classes are also more likely to feel they are competent to pursue a major in that subject.

While both professors and departments see benefits from inflating grades slightly, neither of them directly feel the negative impacts of grade creep. Despite the knowledge that grade inflation erodes the value of the grading signal in general, and may have negative social consequences in the future, there is no direct feedback mechanism that causes an individual professor or department to incorporate these ill effects into their grading policies. In economic terms, though the social costs of grade inflation may outweigh any benefit received by grade-givers, the private costs are small and do not eclipse the private benefits.

The outcome of these incentives is a grading détente, as described by Professors DeCoster and Hornsten, with grades increasingly compressed at the top end of the grading scale and decreasingly useful as a means of distinguishing between students.

Assuming grade creep is worth stopping, how can it be stopped? It is not necessary to impose a particular interpretation of grades on faculty members, provided their interpretation remains consistent. Rather, an effective policy would reduce the incentives individuals and departments have to increase grades, or?to use David Vail's term?deflate their grading standards over time.

One possible step is to follow Professors DeCoster and Hornsten's suggestion that grades be reported in a relative context. With this additional information, Cs would lose their "punitive connotation." Individual faculty members would realize that by inflating one student's grade they are disadvantaging the others and possibly, in the long run, themselves.

Modifying grading policy is complex and likely contentious. In the stadium, a simple shout of "Down in front!" might suffice.