September 5, 2008

A Statistics Professor Finds Grade Inflation a Difficult Problem

By PAULA WASLEY

While a professor of statistics at Duke University in the 1990s, Valen E. Johnson devised a sophisticated formula, called the Achievement Index, to get around differences in grading practices among professors and among disciplines.

In Grade Inflation: A Crisis in College Education (Springer-Verlag, 2003), he wrote about the index and about research he conducted at Duke showing that students not only gravitate to courses with higher grade distributions, but also write better evaluations

Print Subscription

Digital Subscription

Already have an account? Log In Now.