Rationale from Executive Committee discussions:

 

 RATIONALE

  1. This system gives faculty tools to make appropriate distinctions between levels of student performance and to reward student performance in a more nuanced way.  E.g., faculty will no longer have to lump together students who earn 89 with those who earn 81.
  2. Plus-minus grading allows faculty to give more precise and thus more informative feedback to students, which is better for learning and for motivation.  It is also more fair to students, both individually and collectively.
  3. Plus-minus grading provides motivation and incentive for students to perform at a higher level.  This is consistent with the desire to increase standards at WSU.  Students who are earning a C- will now have to work that little bit harder to achieve a C and maintain their status.  Students on the border between grade subdivisions will have a reason to keep trying at the end of semester.  Students who might have told themselves, “I’ll never get an A, why bother trying,” might now work harder to achieve a B+ instead of being satisfied with a B.
  4. It will now be somewhat more difficult to achieve a 4.0 grade point average.  Again, this is consistent with the desire to raise standards at WSU.  Achieving a 4.0 will now really mean something, and will be a valuable mark of distinction for our very best students.
  5. Plus-minus grading aligns more closely than the traditional system with how faculty actually grade students: Many (if not most) faculty actually assign percentage grades on assignments and use them to calculate the overall course grade as a percentage, which is then converted to a letter grade at the end of semester.  That is, many of us already do distinguish between B+ (89%) and B- (81%), we just have not been allowed to express this distinction when submitting grades in the old system.  This means that many (if not most) faculty will need to make few if any adjustments to their grading practices in order to work within the plus-minus system.
  6. A majority of US colleges use plus-minus grading; 80% of Carnegie-classified schools use plus-minus grading; 19 of the top 20 US universities use plus-minus grading; two other members of the Kansas Regents system use plus-minus grading.  (The version of plus-minus grading proposed above is by far the most common one, with the addition of D+ and D-.)

 

ISSUES TO CONSIDER

  1. Studies show that the institution-wide average GPA is unaffected by a switch to a plus-minus grading system.  Only a few studies have been conducted on the effect of plus-minus grading on overall grade distributions; they have found that there is essentially no change.
  2. According to a computer model developed at Wake Forrest, the expected change in individual GPA due to a change of grading systems is +/-0.06.  It should be noted that students near the top of the range are affected most—e.g., students with a 3.9 GPA can see a decrease of as much as 0.08.
  3. Students who earn C- can be subject to difficulties they would have avoided in a “straight” letter grading system.  The first option is to bite this bullet, using it to raise standards at WSU and to inspire students to work harder.  After all, the point of regulations regarding maintaining a C average is not to encourage or make it possible for students to “just scrape by” with a 1.67 GPA.  The second option is to re-write the various policies related to maintaining a C average so that any grade in the C range, including C-, counts as meeting the minimum standard.  (The easiest way to do that might be to insert something like the following in the relevant places: “In this policy, ‘C’ should be interpreted to refer to any grade in the C range, from C- to C+.”)
  4. There might be more grade appeals; under the new system some students who earn minus grades (especially C- and A-) might appeal for the full letter, for example.  An increased number of appeals, although likely based on experiences at other colleges, is not by itself a weighty enough reason to not implement plus-minus grading.  The positive reasons in favor of the system outweigh such practical concerns, which can in any case be ameliorated by developing appropriate administrative structures.  Note that finding a way to deal with extra appeals is something that the Senate can consider AFTER the new system is implemented, IF it turns out that there really are additional appeals. (We could, for example, bar appeals of half a letter grade or less, or we could increase the size of the Committee that handles appeals and run parallel hearings instead of having one committee handle all the appeals, etc.)
  5. Some have complained that introducing a plus-minus grading system forces faculty to assign grades in a certain way, thus impinging on academic freedom.  Note, however, that the grading system we have now is similarly mandatory: A, B, C, D, and F.  It is true that the new system adds several more categories, but that is not a change in the nature of the grading system relative to the faculty member’s freedom to assign grades.  The faculty member’s discretion to establish his or her own methodology for assigning grades within the university-wide system remains as it was in the old system.
  6. A slow transition to a plus-minus system would only allow time for resentment, objections and confusion to build up.  After a careful information campaign in which the Senate Executive together with Senators and administration explain the reasons for the change, the new system should be implemented as quickly as the computer system, Catalog and Bulletin can be changed, with no grand-fathering of students who began at WSU on the old system.  A notation should be included on transcripts regarding the date of implementation of the new grading system.
  7. The students who benefit most from the plus-minus grading system are the best and hardest working students.  These are exactly the students we should be rewarding.  (The new system will make 4.0 a truly distinguished achievement and our A students will be distinguished from our A- students.  (One might respond that our "pretty good" students will be harmed by the new system: where they would have gotten 4.0 in the old system, they will get 3.9 or 3.8 in the new.  This is probably an acceptable consequence, since truth is better than fiction.)  The system will also clearly benefit our hardest working students, who will have the opportunity to be rewarded where they would not have been in the old system--for example, by earning a B+ when someone else of similar ability but lesser habits would earn a B or B-.
  8. Making the system optional (where individual students, professors or colleges can opt in or out of plus-minus grading) has been tried in various places.  The freedom and choice thereby gained seems to be counter-balanced by the inconsistency and unfairness of the “mixed” system that results.