To think there is grade inflation in universities

[Thetelly8]

I’ve noticed a lot of students gain very high grades it seems people getting a 2.2 or a third is extremely unusual.

Your post makes no sense. Medical students don't learn by osmosis. They learn by studying, and I suspect many do work hard to pass their medical exams.

DD has been home since mid December and has only taken 3 days off from studying. She sits at the dining room table to work and doesn't need to tell me that she is working hard because I can see with my own eyes that she is. And yes it is hard work for her as she is battling CFS and an auto immune condition.

I don't know why you insist that students don't work hard. Some don't and some do. Yet, according to you and lots of other posters students are lazy and do very little work.

Why can't they raise the grade boundaries and make 80% a first and 70% a 2.1?

You are not kidding. Retired academic here.

I don't think anyone is saying that no students work hard. Some do. However, many don't. I noticed a massive deterioration when students started working part-time jobs as well as studying. They don't have the time to put in to their studies.

Students also have an expectation of spoon feeding that did not exist in the past. Some students are capable of self-directed learning but many aren't. We are also under pressure to increase retention and progression rates. Since covid though the authorities in my university have gotten a bit concerned about the high number of H1s. However that's only because of adverse news reporting. We now have to justify more than a certain percentage of H1s.

What are H1s?

@RampantIvy

H1 = First class honours.

I didn't insist that students don't work hard, @OchonAgusOchonOh 😀. Where did you get that from? I asked how parents knew, and what 'working hard' meant to them, as there is no objective definition of which I'm aware, and anyway most 18-21 year olds don't have parents standing over them as they work.

I realise that medical students don't learn by osmosis, and I didn't say that, either. Nor did I say that students are lazy and do very little work - that is in your head, not in my post - which, ironically, you quoted. With respect, I'd hope that if you have a degree you were marked down on accurate understanding of text, and for misrepresenting your source material.

My point is that however hard someone works at learning, a degree measures results, which, IMO, is as it should be. Even then, there are students, often encouraged by helicopter parents, who see paying towards fees as entitling them to high marks, and if the course they've chosen has assessment styles that they don't like (eg presentations or exams) they push for exemptions, even if the career the course will qualify them for needs skills in those areas.

That sort of thing lowers standards, but is difficult for staff to resist in the current climate.

You are replying to the wrong poster. You also need to re-read my post. It's a little rich that you accuse me of poor reading comprehension 😁

No helicopter parenting going on here, and no denying grade inflation either.

Where do you think AI learns from?

I do think students today are way more scaffolded and there's more means of assessment. in some ways that's good as I do know many fellow students in the 1990s who were poorly served by the sink or swim style. On the other hand, sometimes the help may be excessive based on what I've seen and is aimed at not having people fail.

I don't blame students for this. We set benchmarks and students meet them.

But, globally, there's been an issue with student performance in the past decade, especially since covid. I've seen academics from multiple countries complaining about it.

Even then, there are students, often encouraged by helicopter parents, who see paying towards fees as entitling them to high marks

I don’t think parents expect high marks, they do however expect high quality teaching to support students to gain high marks. And that is not always a given.

In terms of hard work, I agree that degrees should not be a measure of this. I have a DC with SEN who works incredibly hard but will never be able to complete a degree. It is clearly correct that someone not able to work at the level required should not get a degree regardless of how hard they work. Equally it is also correct that a lazy student with a gift for a subject should be able to get a degree if they produce work to standard however insufferable they may be.

In terms of adjustments, my DC gets these in exams. Exams are not a test of ability to use a pen so this should not be part of the test if a student struggles to write for whatever reason. In this day and age, I think everyone should have the option to type, and I know written exams have become less common. I remember how tired my hand would get in three hours of exam essay writing and I am of an age where I would write a lot (including rapidly scribbling notes in lectures - no recording or slides for us!). People rarely actually write much these days so I imagine doing so in exams must be extra hard.

Huh? No, it was As at alevel with As/A*s at gcse in the 1990s. What are you talking about?

And the poster comparing her relative at an old poly to her son’s RG uni - unless you are attending lectures, reading the assessments set and full criteria/mark scheme, how on earth are you making that judgement?

Maybe it’s the impact of paying £9k a year. Lots of people in the 1980s went to uni for the student life and just got drunk for 3 years.

Not everyone got a grant (it was based on parent income, and parents didn’t always pay if students weren’t entitled to a grant) and there weren’t any loans. So whilst they may not have had to pay fees, they didn’t necessarily have money either. Students were still poor even with the grant. It was also harder to get into university so it was generally hard working high achievers who went and remained hard working when they got there, not least because if you failed an exam you were sent down.

Perhaps students are just working harder as University is no longer ‘free’

I'm not convinced students work any harder now, and there are plenty of young people who go to university just for the experience or to put off getting full time employment for 3 years.

The system is broken and the default shouldn't be university for all young people. I also agree that the grading needs reforming, but how do you go about this?

It's interesting that globally UK degrees are less respected. When you compare our higher education system to that of the USA (Ivy League universities excepted) where you can get into university on sports scholarships even if you are academically weak and get extra marks from attendance and other non academic neasures, how does that look globally?

@RampantIvy university isn't the default position when only 37% of school leavers go. I do actually think this is too high but the minute we expanded the university sector post 1992, it was inevitable. The university sector consumed most HE colleges and converted too many qualifications into degrees. Now we worry about quality, but that was inevitable. We truly don’t have an ever expanding supply of bright dc of degree standard. The only answer was to broaden out subjects and reduce entry standards. Now employers are well aware of a hierarchy and we have many graduates doing mundane jobs.

My DH is a Chartered Engineer with a uk degree. The engineers being produced by many Uk universities are respected and their qualifications, if progressing to CEng, are recognised world wide. Other types of degrees are probably irrelevant elsewhere. Degrees obtained elsewhere aren’t necessarily better but employers have to work out what they want from the employee and test applicants to sift for appropriate skills. The degrees aren’t trusted.

The sector needs to reduce to not accommodate dc with lower grade A levels. These applicants should be doing a 2 year diploma course which was normal pre 1992. A Conservative Government made the change away from 2 tier HE snd it was clearly ludicrous. Around 20-25% should be on degree courses and the remaining dc who now go, plus many more, should be doing full time HE or part time via apprenticeships. Then they move on to degrees if suitable. The university sector needs a reset.

@TeenLifeMum If you passed the 7th term entry exam, your offer might be EE. The students had already bagged the A levels so EE didn’t mean anything. These were offers made to nailed on candidates. Sometimes used by other universities too. My friend had a similar offer from a medical school. It was still like this in the 60s and 70s. Oxbridge had their own entry exams.

I think you misread my post. I was responding to your statement "I don't know why you insist that students don't work hard." when I said "I don't think anyone is saying that no students work hard".

Some schools (tended to be state sector) only offered a 4th term entrance exam opportunity - so before A levels had been taken and where the EE offer would still need to be met, although candidates had demonstrated that they were more than able. The two E grades were the minimum required for state funding.

@OhDear111 I stand corrected. It felt like it was the default option at DD's school. When DD decided to take a gap year the head of 6th form wasn't impressed because they couldn't include her in the destination statistics.

However, they did support her application to university when she did decide to go and checked her personal statement and provided a reference.

@SabrinaThwaite I was at a state grammar and it was 7th term - but I’m sure some schools approached it differently. But you could still be given a EE offer.

@RampantIvy I’m sure it feels like everyone is encouraged to go to university but the majority don’t go and of course we have many who simply aren’t getting the grades at GCSE to pursue HE in that format. We forget dc go to FE colleges and aren’t all at 6th forms in schools.

It sounds like EE is basically the equivalent of an unconditional offer. In Scotland, where lots apply after Highers, unconditional offers are very common, if not the majority of offers (apart from for courses like medicine).

As for the majority don’t go to university, given 49% go by the time they are 25, that only leaves 1% to go after that age in order for a majority to go.

Yes, we had 4th term entrance exam opportunity- state sixth form college in the 1980s.

Agree with this. DH took those S levels for Maths and Physics I wrote of above because he did not wish to stay on for the extra term and prepare for the entrance exam