Grade inflation versus grade improvement: Are our students getting more intelligent?

Abstract

The move from elite to mass systems of higher education has been accompanied by concerns relating to the quality of provision and standards, particularly in relation to the increasing proportion of higher grades awarded to students. Bayesian multilevel models were used to investigate the temporal trend of grade attainment in 101 higher education providers across the UK, between the 2009/10 and 2018/19 academic years, to understand if rising grades are due to inflation or a consequence of improvements across the higher education system. The results suggest a much more positive and proactive picture of a higher education system that is engaged in a process of continuous enhancement. The unexplained variables, rather than automatically being labelled as grade inflation, should instead point to a need to investigate further the local institutional contextual factors that inform grade distribution. The deficit lens through which ‘grade inflation’ is often perceived is a damaging and unhelpful distraction. Measures, such as improved assessment literacy, are suggested as approaches that the sector could adopt to further develop its understanding of grade improvement as opposed to grade inflation.

Keywords:

• Assessment literacy
• grade inflation
• grade improvement
• higher education
• Bayesian multilevel modelling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Calvin Jephcote

Calvin Jephcote is a Research Associate and part-time Lecturer with the Centre for Environmental Health and Sustainability (CEHS), at the University of Leicester. He is involved in multidisciplinary socioenvironmental research, and is interested by curriculum design, and assessment practices in higher education.

Emma Medland

Emma Medland is a Lecturer in Higher Education with the Department of Higher Education, at the University of Surrey. She is Programme Leader of the MA in Higher Education, and a Senior Fellow of Advanced HE. Her research interests relate primarily to assessment and feedback in Higher Education, focusing recently on assessment literacy, verbal feedback, and grade inflation.

Simon Lygo-Baker

Simon Lygo-Baker is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of Surrey and a visiting faculty at UW-Madison in the US. He has been an academic developer for twenty years and has devised and developed a number of programmes aimed at enhancing learning and teaching. He is particularly interested in curriculum design, the role of values in teaching and learning within clinical teaching environments