RELATIVE GRADING :: A confused art?

IIT Kanpur was set up with aid from the United States of America. Many ideas and things were shipped from Washington DC to Kanpur. When a packet from one of these shipments was opened, a brilliant proposal of adopting "relative grading" emerged.And IIT Kanpur was amongst the first, in the country to adopt this relative method of evaluating performance. However, over the years, the brilliance of the proposal occasionally appears to have tarnished in places. Relative grading invests instructors with great flexibility and responsibility, giving rise to many interpretations of relative grading. Students sense an inconsistency across the instructors , and sometimes find reason to complain. Is it time to take another look at the system of relative grading, and how it is conducted in the Institute?

Absolute vs Relative Grading

The traditional method of evaluating student performance is the absolute grading approach. Here, a student's performance in a course is quantified as a percentage of marks.Then absolute cutoff levels are used on the average of percentages of marks in all courses to summarise the overall performance of the student. The threshold levels are:

In the above method, when more weightage is to be assigned to some courses, such preferred courses are given a total weightage of say, 200 marks as against 100 marks. Absolute grading is convenient when the class size is large, e.g. a state university having over 1000 students in a particular class, though at different colleges. Here, it must be kept in mind that although the students may be studying at different colleges, they share the similar facilities in terms of infrastructure and quality of instructors, and have a common syllabus aand the same question paper.

IIT Kanpur follows the system of Relative Grading. Under this approach, student performances are first quantified as marks. Then, the instructor assigns the following letter grades:

The degree of difficulty in the various examination papers, the leniency exercised in giving partial credits for incomplete responses, and the instructors overall assessment of the student's understanding of the subject, form the input to awarding letter grades.

Some Interpretations

Relative Grading, belongs to an academic environment that has a dynamic system where content and treatment of the subject keep changing, depending upon the instructor and on the changes taking place in the fields of engineering and technology. Absolute Grading depends upon the syllabus, the question paper and the leniency in awarding marks, all of which may vary from one institute to another. Relative grading counters these inconsistencies by evaluating a student vis-à-vis his/her own class. On knowing the quality of the institute to which the student belongs, a fairly accurate judgement of his/her calibre can be made on the basis of (relative) grades. Relative grading has the further advantage of removing the fine edge of cut-throat competition for marks among students.

Clearly, assigning letter grades based on marks obtained is a crucial task and this onus lies on the instructor. In fact, no one can question his/her decision. Instructors need to ensure that they shoulder this responsibility with care. A clearly defined evaluation system must be employed, e.g., mid-semester exams, home assignments, quizzes, term papers, seminars and final examination, with pre-specified weightages for each of these elements. This should be adhered to consistently during the course of the semester. Any carelessness in this respect is likely to not only provide an incorrect picture of students' calibre, but also result in the loss of confidence of students.

One criticism that some instructors face is that they inflate grades to become "popular" amongst students. Another major grouse of students is regarding the number of 'A' grades awarded for a course. Some instructors assign "A" grades liberally, and some others are free with "F" grades. The most criticised situation is when a student of good standing (based on his past records at the Institute) does poorly in a certain course, he is still awarded a good grade.

Steps for Bringing in Consistency . . .

At the outset, it is clear that both "A" and "F" grades must definitely be earned, while the other grades may usually be awarded. So, only deserving candidates should get "A" and "F" grades. This reflects the true potential of students, particularly to the prospective employers who wish to recruit the students.

When the class size is large (e.g. in B.Tech. courses), it may be desirable to ensure the numbers of "A" and "B" grades together is close to the number of "C" and "D" grades together. And when the class size is small, the above may not be possible, but it is important to ensure that the thresholds that discriminate between "A" and "B" grades, and between "C" and "D" grades, should be chosen carefully.

To be able to distinguish between students deserving different letter grades, a good distribution of marks obtained by the class is essential at the end of the semester. And, this is possible by employing question papers having questions that require distinctly different levels of scholastic ability. This must be ably supported by a very objective way of giving partial credit for insufficient responses.

Looking ahead . . .

Clearly, when the entire responsibility is placed on the instructor alone, inconsistencies are bound to occur.Instructors who are new to relative grading are better off discussing with fellow instructors to understand how they are doing it. One may only observe trends in the practise of doing relative grading, as there is no one answer for all situations. Judiciousness must be excercised to blend objectivity of performance with the subjectivity involved in gathering whether the student has learnt the subject matter . . . for relative grading is an art!

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