ANN ARBOR—After completing a statistical analysis of grades at Duke University, Valen Johnson found what he believes is conclusive evidence of grade inflation. But that’s the easy part. Johnson says the more complex concern is deciding how to solve the problems that stem from grade inflation and its underlying cause–grading disparities.  

In his new book, “Grade Inflation: A Crisis in College Education,” Johnson, a former Duke professor, explains what he found in an analysis of student grades given in the 1998-1999 academic year at Duke. In short, instructors in natural sciences grade tougher than those in the humanities, and students gravitate toward disciplines and courses known for easier grades.

“The theme is that disparities in grading influence many educational decisions,” said Johnson, now a professor of biostatistics at the U-M School of Public Health.

Additional findings include: • Students were twice as likely to sign up for classes with an A- average than those with a B average. Johnson designed a Web-based experiment in which students evaluated the courses they were taking, and also could look at average grades of classes they had not taken. Students tended to sign up for classes with higher average grades.

• Professors who gave higher average grades were almost twice as likely to get higher evaluations from their students than those who graded lower. The ratings students give professors jumped when the grade students expected to get increased from B to A.

Because students tend to take classes perceived as giving easier As, and professors receive better evaluations after giving higher grades, there are incentives both in enrollment figures and student evaluations, for professors to grade higher.

Meanwhile, giving lower grades causes headaches. Lower grades lead to lower faculty evaluations, difficulty in building rapport in the classroom and office hours filled with angry students arguing about their grades. “There’s just really no incentive for a faculty member to give a low grade,” Johnson said.

Among possible solutions that Johnson suggests in his book are: encouraging university-sponsored discussions among faculty members about grading practices; implementing flexible grading curves that press instructors to give certain numbers of high, middle and low marks; and allowing professors who grade harder to drop some of their lowest course evaluations.

He also says schools could base their graduation honors on a weighted grade point average, adjusted for the varying grading practices of instructors, and could give students the option to report adjusted GPAs on their transcripts.

Johnson got involved in studying grade inflation when he was invited to sit on a Duke committee discussing the issue about six years ago. Through that involvement, he saw how difficult it is to design remedies, as many suggestions anger students and faculty members and provide less-than-perfect results.

Related links:

• Valen Johnson’s faculty profile
• More information about Johnson’s book from Springer-Verlag
• E-mail: cnewvine@umich.edu