Essay about Pros and Cons of Using a Plus-Minus Grading System

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Student and Faculty Views of Plus-Minus Grading Systems
Working Paper Series—07-11 | December 2007

Jim Morgan
(928) 523-7385 James.morgan@nau.edu

Gary Tallman Robert Williams

All professors at:

Northern Arizona University The W. A. Franke College of Business
PO Box 15066 Flagstaff, AZ 86011.5066

Student and Faculty Views of Plus-Minus Grading Systems
Introduction Many colleges and universities have adopted or are considering adopting a grading system that provides a larger number of marking choices than the A through F whole-letter system. This usually takes the form of a plus-minus (+/-) grading system in one version or another. While a variety of reasons have been put forth for the move to +/- grades, a key motivation …show more content…
The single intermediate grade is typically listed either as the concatenation of the two grades it lies between, such as AB for the grade between an A and a B, or as a plus without a corresponding minus. In these systems the grade points awarded for the intermediate grade are half way between the two related whole-letter grades (a 3.5 for an AB or a B+). Why the Movement to +/- Grading? The proportion of institutions using +/- grading systems increased by 12 percent from 1982 to 1992 [Riley, Checca, Singer, & Worthington, 1994] with the trend continuing. There are three reasons typically cited as motivation for universities to change to a +/- grading system. They are concerns over grade inflation, ability to differentiate between students and ability to motivate students to aspire to learn more. A substantial body of literature details the existence of grade inflation in American colleges and universities. One study [Levine, 1994] surveyed 4,900 college graduates from 1969 to 1993 and found that the number of A’s awarded had quadrupled and the number of C’s had dropped by two thirds.
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