How many points do I need to get an A?
I would say that I was highly motivated by grades throughout my middle school and high school career. My mom would always “jokingly” say that she never had to push me to do my work or make sure that I was doing well in my classes because I always put more pressure on myself than she ever would. I think my main drive to get good grades came from the belief that a good GPA would help me to get into college. This is why I was devastated when I got a B in pre-calculus my junior year of high school. This grade sticks out to me not just because it was the first time I didn’t receive an A but because of how close I was to the A. I remember I had a 93.4 something in the class and to get an A I needed a 93.5, if I had just done slightly better on one assignment or gotten one more answer correct on a test I would not be typing this story today. I feel like I learned all the concepts that I needed to learn in the course and was still able to be successful in my calculus class the next year, but that grade will always stick out to me because I felt it didn’t reflect the effort that I put into the class. While this grade did not prevent me from getting into the college I wanted to get into, it did seem like the end of the world at the time. This is one of the many reasons that I feel that grading students on a letter grade scale is not the best way to measure their knowledge and does not create the best environments for students to learn.
As an undergrad I was still extremely concerned about my grades. I had an excel sheet for each course, where I could calculate what grade I needed to get on my test in order to get an A. My need for an A got so bad that during tests I wasn’t feeling confident about, I spent an unnecessary amount of time calculating how many questions I needed to get right to get enough points to maintain my grade. Time that would have been better spent working through the questions themselves. Looking back at this now it seems ridiculous, but at the time I was so focused on my grades that I couldn’t see the bigger picture.
One of the first things I was told when I started graduate school was that “grades don’t matter anymore,” and while I do agree that grades aren’t the most important aspect of my education, they do still matter. I still need to keep a certain GPA to have good academic standing and to keep my assistantship. So while I was slightly relieved to hear that “grades don’t matter anymore” when it comes down to it, I think I stress about my grades just as much now as I did in undergrad. I still have my excel sheets with all the possible grades that I need for each assignment/test, but now I sometimes am just striving for a B rather than an A.
Alfie Kohn mentioned a study that found that “the elimination of grades (in favor of a pass/fail system) produces substantial benefits with no apparent disadvantages in medical school (White and Fantone, 2010).” After reading this I thought that maybe this could work in any graduate program, because there are enough other aspect of learning that classroom grades really aren’t as important. After discussing this with my sister I am not so sure that this would actually work…
Why I originally thought this pass/fail system would be good:
I just completed my qualifying exam which I felt was a great way to test my knowledge and critical thinking skills. For this exam we had to choose one of two articles given to us and write a critique within one week and then do an oral presentation to defend the critique. After the oral presentation the committee asked questions about concepts from courses that I have taken that were also related to the article. This exam was pass/fail and I felt it was a great way to determine if I comprehended what I learned in graduate school so far.
Why I am now questioning this system:
After I told my sister (who is also a grad student) that I though a pass/fail system would work, her response was: “well then I would just do the minimum amount of work necessary to pass.” I guess this just shows the difference in our work ethic and really highlights that there really isn’t one system that can work for everyone. For me if a pass/fail system was implemented I would want to do the best that I could to ensure that I passes but would (hopefully) not be quite as stressed. For her it would mean not needing to do as much work because it would only matter if you passed or failed not how well you passed.