THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512030047
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 138 lines
Have professors gotten too soft on lazy students, distributing A's as freely as they do handouts?
That fear has spread across campuses over the last few years.
A new federal study, however, says that professors are giving a lower percentage of high grades than they did two decades ago, and GPAs have gone down a bit.
The average grade-point average of U.S. college students fell from 2.80 in 1972 to 2.66 - or roughly a B-minus - in 1993, the U.S. Department of Education report said. The percentage of course grades that were A's also dipped a bit - from 27 percent to 25 percent.
The study examined the transcripts of more than 1.5 million students for each year.
``Nationally, you can say that colleges are doing a reasonably good job in judging their students' performance,'' said Clifford Adelman, a senior research analyst for the education department. ``The tales of grade inflation are confined to elite schools.''
The debate on grade inflation has percolated throughout academia in the last half-decade. Martin Anderson, a frequent critic of colleges, wrote in a newspaper column two years ago:
``One of academe's least-discussed `secrets' is that students don't have to study hard or cheat to get high grades these days. The faculty has instituted and condoned grading practices that practically guarantee high grades to anyone who is alive and breathing at the end of the semester.''
The problem is not just academic, Anderson and other critics say. The danger is that students leave college poorly prepared and not willing to work hard.
Ironically, the allegations of grade inflation first surfaced at what are considered some of the nation's toughest schools. A handful of studies showed that elite colleges were offering plenty of high grades.
Traditionally, the C was considered the midpoint in the grading system, with half the remaining grades exceeding C and half falling below it. But Princeton University reported recently that 80 percent of all its grades were A's or B's; A's accounted for 40 percent of all grades, more than double the proportion given 25 years ago. At Harvard, the average grade is a B-plus.
Faculty at the schools have been divided in their responses. Critics say the numbers show that professors are kowtowing to students to stay popular and maintain enrollments; others say it's just that the schools attract extremely sharp students.
No local statistics are available on changes in grade distributions over the last few decades. But students and professors differ, too, on the prevalence of ``easy A's.''
Debra Freeman, an Old Dominion University junior majoring in English, said she had taken some required ``fluff courses, where you do two or three assignments, get an `A' and you're done.''
But in most classes, ``I haven't really seen grade inflation,'' she said. ``I think you have to work to get your `A,' believe me.''
Granville Sawyer Jr., head of the management department at Norfolk State University, agreed. ``In my 15 years of teaching, I have not experienced a situation that students are getting less smart or that I had to lower my expectations. I think the students are capable of doing competitive work.''
But Del Carlson, a political science professor at Virginia Wesleyan College known for his unflinching standards, sometimes feels he stands alone.
``From my point of view, grade inflation has been getting worse and worse,'' he said. ``The double whammy is that as grades have been going up, less and less has been expected of students.'' And that, he says, suits many just fine.
``Some students are founding members of what I call the league of the militant mediocre,'' he said. ``If they do any work at all, they expect to get a B, regardless of the quality of the work.'' And, he said, professors all too often acquiesce to maintain high enrollments, keeping their programs alive.
At Wesleyan last semester, Carlson said, 26 percent of the grades were A's - about the national average. In his classes, it's more like 10 percent. But even that's more than he'd like.
``I feel like I'm grading half a grade higher than I should,'' he said. ``I don't want to be so far out of the range of my colleagues. I participate in this a little bit, too.''
ODU recently looked at grade distributions in each of its schools, said Jo Ann Gora, the acting president. But the numbers, she warned, must be viewed in context.
For instance, students in the university's College of Health Sciences, which has programs such as physical therapy and dental assisting, have some of the highest averages. But that doesn't mean they're coasting, because nearly all pass their state licensing exams, she said.
``We know that's a student population that's very focused,'' Gora said. ``All of those majors are definitely going to have a job at the end of the road.''
Likewise, she said, the national survey should not be used to make sweeping conclusions. ``You don't know what you know when you get data like that,'' Gora said. ``Students could be coming in more or less prepared; teachers could be changing what they teach in a class.''
Adelman, the federal researcher, agreed that the slight grade decline shown in the study shouldn't be interpreted as proof that students are entering college more poorly prepared.
He attributed the drop to the 37 percent increase in enrollment during the period: ``When you expand the system by that much, it is statistical common sense that the grades are going to go down.
``A significant number of students are arriving underprepared,'' he said, ``but there are a significant number of students arriving better prepared'': Though students are spending more time in remedial courses, more are also enrolling in high-level math courses.
The federal survey, though, supports at least one assumption about academics: Computer science is tough. P.E.'s a cinch.
``Machine Language/Computer Organization'' - which Adelman characterizes as a mid-level computer class - was the course with the highest rate of failure, at 11 percent.
Students in ``Varsity Athletics: Minor Sports'' had the easiest time: 67 percent got A's. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Granville Sawyer Jr.
Jo Ann Gora
Graphic
OTHER FINDINGS
The U.S. Department of Education study, ``The New College Course
Map and Transcript Files,'' also said that in the past two
decades:
The percentage of students majoring in business shot up, from 18
percent to 25 percent; the percentage in education plummeted from 16
percent to 7 percent.
Women continue to get slightly better grades than men. The mean
grade-point average was 2.70 for females and 2.61 for males in
1993.
The percentage of students who ended up with bachelor's degrees
declined from 48 percent to 45 percent.
The average time it took people to earn degrees rose from 4.5 to
4.8 years.
The average number of credits earned by degree recipients rose
from 126 to 139.
KEYWORDS: ACADEMIC GRADES STATISTICS STUDY by CNB