Education or grading? Arguments for a non-subdivided honours degree

ABSTRACT

A fundamental difficulty prevents the incorporation of recent higher education (HE) initiatives (‘enterprise˚s, ‘capability˚s, etc.) into the basic HE course structure. The new initiatives are based on the explicit description of complex learning outcomes, and therefore require criterion-referenced, pass-fail assessment. The classified honours degree, the centre of the current HE course structure, is (in contrast) a norm-referenced format which requires the comparison of candidates with each other. The full implementation of the new initiatives therefore requires the replacement of the classified honours degree with a non-subdivided honours degree, awarded on a pass-fail basis. Such a change would be a valuable educational reform, since the existence and continued influence of the classified honours degree is not a consequence of any justifiable curriculum theory but an historical and a cultural phenomenon, explicable in terms of widespread but questionable common-sense practices, by the ambiguities of the university tradition, and by the universities' current role in social selection.