Answer by Scott for What does an optimal grading distribution look like?
The right distribution to use is the one that the students are used to.I would dispute your assumption that more entropy is always better than less.Lets imagine a student who typically receives a B...
View ArticleAnswer by Floris for What does an optimal grading distribution look like?
Years ago I was involved in the grading of entrance exams for a well-known university. Our goal, in grading, was to provide the maximum differentiation: as the purpose of the exam was to find the top...
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Answer by Raphael for What does an optimal grading distribution look like?
I agree with other answers: there is little sense to change your grading paradigm a posteriori until you get some distribution.However, it can be useful to test your assumptions by formulating your...
View ArticleAnswer by Wayne Werner for What does an optimal grading distribution look like?
My philosophy professor's grading philosophy was that by very definition, most people are average (i.e. C)Students asked if he graded on a curve and his response: Yes - if my grades don't fall on a...
View ArticleAnswer by blankip for What does an optimal grading distribution look like?
Your question is really impossible to answer because you don't give us the measurable goals of your grading distributions. Some sort of Bell Curve (example #1)This is clearly flawed because it poses no...
View ArticleAnswer by simbo1905 for What does an optimal grading distribution look like?
My undergraduate course tutor's research specialism was statistical mechanics. He wrote the "grade normalisation" software for my university course which was Physics. It would take students raw trades...
View ArticleAnswer by user3697176 for What does an optimal grading distribution look like?
Edwards Deming, a guru in the quality movement, thought that there should be only three outcomes: "Student masters the material", which is the objective of the course and the main responsibility of the...
View ArticleAnswer by The Nate for What does an optimal grading distribution look like?
The optimal grading distribution looks exactly like the distribution of capability in the field that the members of your class have.Now, that's not really something you can easily or perfectly measure,...
View ArticleAnswer by StrongBad for What does an optimal grading distribution look like?
Without trying to evade your question, it is extremely difficult to quantify the impact of different grading distributions. This makes it not possible to find an optimal solution. You state 2 goals...
View ArticleAnswer by ff524 for What does an optimal grading distribution look like?
Assigning grades to fit some "optimal distribution" is misguided. We don't want to maximize the entropy of the grades in a particular course. It's not a very useful measure of a "good" set of grades....
View ArticleWhat does an optimal grading distribution look like?
Researchers on education must have thought about this, so I hope to find some directions here. Suppose that I am grading students on a scale from 1 to 10. If I have no prior knowledge of the ability of...
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