4 ms·

Even if you weren't completely mistaken in your assumptions, shouldn't students have the right to get the exam grades they actually deserve? I was at best avera

by ngcazz 6y ago

Even if you weren't completely mistaken in your assumptions, shouldn't students have the right to get the exam grades they actually deserve? I was at best average in secondary school and I had to kick it up a few notch for the national exams (Portuguese A-level equivalent). Under your "meh" style, I'd have lost at least a year before I'd be able to enroll in uni, because whatever!, despite getting scores above the 95th percentile in my exams. Solidarity clearly means nothing here.

macspoofing 6y ago
>shouldn't students have the right to get the exam grades they actually deserve? Look, nothing I've seen here changes the base fact that if you were a good students getting good grades, you are going to be OK. It also doesn't change the base fact that mark inflation exits. That some schools will grade higher than others for the same academic performance. So no, you don't have a 'right' to a mark you haven't earned. If you had weak course marks in a school that inflates marks, you don't get to the spot of another student that worked hard during the term and was in a school that did not inflate marks. I have yet to see a good argument that this model is bad (and it may be), or percentage of students have gotten a grade that is out of line with expectations. Also, I do support an appeals process for the cases where the algorithm just got it completely wrong. >I was at best average in secondary school and I had to kick it up a few notch for the national exams (Portuguese A-level equivalent) If you were a bad students, or a student on some margin, you were always going to rely on luck to get through. What if the the set of questions on the standardized test just so happen to coincide with areas you were weak in? I was in situations where I had a weak grasp on course material, but the exam just so happened to have questions in areas that I was strong in and I got a higher mark than I probably deserved. It happens. But again, things just average themselves out over time and students will end up where they 'deserve' to be. >Under your "meh" style, I'd have lost at least a year before I'd be able to enroll in un I'll play along. Let's say you had weak course marks and you were hoping to use the test to boost your final score to get into the school of your choice. Then covid happened and you weren't able to. Well... take that as important life lesson. Don't slack off until the end and hope that you can make up your grades with the exams.
- stordoff 6y ago
  > Let's say you had weak course marks and you were hoping to use the test to boost your final score to get into the school of your choice. Then covid happened and you weren't able to. Well... take that as important life lesson. Don't slack off until the end and hope that you can make up your grades with the exams. I'm not sure why what you mean by "weak course marks" - something like A-Level Maths is assessed entirely in exams at the end of the two year period. There's no formal assessment prior to that. > If you had weak course marks in a school that inflates marks, you don't get to the spot of another student that worked hard during the term and was in a school that did not inflate marks. Alternatively, if you _did_ work hard, but it's assumed that your predicted grades have been inflated, you face getting knocked down through no fault of your own. I also query the notion that you can reliably know which schools get predicted grades wrong. Teachers, and teaching methods, change every year - the people making the predictions are not necessarily the same year to year.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >Alternatively, if you _did_ work hard, but it's assumed that your predicted grades have been inflated, you face getting knocked down through no fault of your own. Mark inflation is a real thing by the way. You can ignore it and assume all teacher-assigned markers across the country are roughly the same, but then you will punish those pupils who come from school where the standards are higher and higher grades are harder to get. Is that fair? >I also query the notion that you can reliably know which schools get predicted grades wrong. That's actually not very hard to do. There was a minor controversy a few back in Canada where a number universities were found out to have correlated the marks students got in university with the marks they got from the specific high school they came from. They had that kind of historical data on every local high-school. They then normalized those marks. People got offended but without provincial standardized testing and grading, you're just going to punish schools with highest academic standards. >Teachers, and teaching methods, change every year - the people making the predictions are not necessarily the same year to year. I agree it changes. I disagree it changes every year, especially in aggregate. A low performing academic school this year is going to be a low performing academic school next year. Maybe in 5 years it will be different, but year over year, the changes are going to be inconsequential.

by ngcazz 6y ago

macspoofing 6y ago

>shouldn't students have the right to get the exam grades they actually deserve? Look, nothing I've seen here changes the base fact that if you were a good students getting good grades, you are going to be OK. It also doesn't change the base fact that mark inflation exits. That some schools will grade higher than others for the same academic performance. So no, you don't have a 'right' to a mark you haven't earned. If you had weak course marks in a school that inflates marks, you don't get to the spot of another student that worked hard during the term and was in a school that did not inflate marks. I have yet to see a good argument that this model is bad (and it may be), or percentage of students have gotten a grade that is out of line with expectations. Also, I do support an appeals process for the cases where the algorithm just got it completely wrong. >I was at best average in secondary school and I had to kick it up a few notch for the national exams (Portuguese A-level equivalent) If you were a bad students, or a student on some margin, you were always going to rely on luck to get through. What if the the set of questions on the standardized test just so happen to coincide with areas you were weak in? I was in situations where I had a weak grasp on course material, but the exam just so happened to have questions in areas that I was strong in and I got a higher mark than I probably deserved. It happens. But again, things just average themselves out over time and students will end up where they 'deserve' to be. >Under your "meh" style, I'd have lost at least a year before I'd be able to enroll in un I'll play along. Let's say you had weak course marks and you were hoping to use the test to boost your final score to get into the school of your choice. Then covid happened and you weren't able to. Well... take that as important life lesson. Don't slack off until the end and hope that you can make up your grades with the exams.

stordoff 6y ago
> Let's say you had weak course marks and you were hoping to use the test to boost your final score to get into the school of your choice. Then covid happened and you weren't able to. Well... take that as important life lesson. Don't slack off until the end and hope that you can make up your grades with the exams. I'm not sure why what you mean by "weak course marks" - something like A-Level Maths is assessed entirely in exams at the end of the two year period. There's no formal assessment prior to that. > If you had weak course marks in a school that inflates marks, you don't get to the spot of another student that worked hard during the term and was in a school that did not inflate marks. Alternatively, if you _did_ work hard, but it's assumed that your predicted grades have been inflated, you face getting knocked down through no fault of your own. I also query the notion that you can reliably know which schools get predicted grades wrong. Teachers, and teaching methods, change every year - the people making the predictions are not necessarily the same year to year.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >Alternatively, if you _did_ work hard, but it's assumed that your predicted grades have been inflated, you face getting knocked down through no fault of your own. Mark inflation is a real thing by the way. You can ignore it and assume all teacher-assigned markers across the country are roughly the same, but then you will punish those pupils who come from school where the standards are higher and higher grades are harder to get. Is that fair? >I also query the notion that you can reliably know which schools get predicted grades wrong. That's actually not very hard to do. There was a minor controversy a few back in Canada where a number universities were found out to have correlated the marks students got in university with the marks they got from the specific high school they came from. They had that kind of historical data on every local high-school. They then normalized those marks. People got offended but without provincial standardized testing and grading, you're just going to punish schools with highest academic standards. >Teachers, and teaching methods, change every year - the people making the predictions are not necessarily the same year to year. I agree it changes. I disagree it changes every year, especially in aggregate. A low performing academic school this year is going to be a low performing academic school next year. Maybe in 5 years it will be different, but year over year, the changes are going to be inconsequential.