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U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades

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Re: U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades

#271

Post by smogcutter »

Zancarius wrote: post #118
smogcutter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As you said, once you have seen all mistakes you know how "bad" of a mistake it actually is. Crucially, this is not quite what the poster said. It’s not about stack ranking students against each other. Say every paper makes the same subtle mistake, and you only notice it halfway through the pile. Unless you go back through them all, you’ll unfairly grade the later entries more harshly.

> It’s not about stack ranking students against each other. It's not, but it sort of has that effect, albeit indirectly, and definitely unfairly.

I think we’re talking about the same thing, but to clarify my meaning:

If you weigh the severity of students mistakes (or successes for that matter) in relation to each other rather than to an objective rubric, you’re effectively stack ranking them whether you mean to or not.

Re: U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades

#273

Post by mjh2539 »

jedberg wrote: post #127

This is basically the reason my kids have the last name that they do. My last name starts with E and my wife's with Y. Bucking tradition, she didn't change her name when we got married, so when we had kids we had to decide what name to give them. We opted to hyphenate. Historically, hyphenated last names were [Woman's last name]-[Man's last name]. However, my wife hated that her last name was near the end of the alph…

In Latin American countries (and Spain) the paternal surname goes first, followed by the maternal surname.

Re: U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades

#274

Post by bsder »

mschuster91 wrote: post #236
bobthepanda wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is it generally time intensive, you are also subject to lots of tiring back and forth with some students about their grades. No grading is perfect, but there’s also some undercurrent of an attitude that students have paid to be there and are entitled to a certain grade.

> No grading is perfect, but there’s also some undercurrent of an attitude that students have paid to be there and are entitled to a certain grade. Given that students have taken on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that they'll have to repay no matter what and on top of that a lot of jobs being completely out of reach these days without an academic degree (that for fucks sake isn't remotely required by virtua…

> Given that students have taken on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that they'll have to repay no matter what and on top of that a lot of jobs being completely out of reach these days without an academic degree (that for fucks sake isn't remotely required by virtually all jobs requiring it!), that's completely understandable.

Would that my students were this engaged before the exam. Guess which students show up the most often for office hours? ... yeah, the ones that are getting the best grades.

If my students spent half as much time learning the subject as arguing with me about grades, they would be getting a higher grade than the one they are arguing for.

Re: U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades

#275

Post by anticensor »

cvwright wrote: post #101
lqet wrote: post #41

I work in academia. When we grade exams, the order of the exams on the stack is the order in which they were collected in the room (people can sit wherever they like). For grading, we are usually 5 people in a single room, and everyone grades a specific exercise for consistency. The exams are getting shuffled heavily , with everyone just grabbing stacks, looking for exams where "their" exercise was not yet graded, an…

My strategy was to, like you said, grade problem by problem. Then for each problem, first find all those who got full marks. Then group the others into piles based on what mistakes they made. This ensures that everyone who made the same mistake(s) gets the same grade. It also tends to shuffle the order of the exams after every problem. Obviously you don’t need this strategy for simple multiple choice questions, and i…

An even better strategy is to have the papers scanned by a double-sided scanner and graded by an AI grader.

Re: U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades

#276

Post by inemesitaffia »

stikit wrote: post #94

A .3 point difference isn’t going to make a real difference to anyone’s life and is likely a wash when other yet undiscovered biases are in the mix. Unfairness and bias is a critical factor in driving people to extraordinary achievements.

It stacks over time

Re: U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades

#277

Post by sitkack »

libria wrote: post #195
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of school I can’t think of even a single instance of alphabetical sorting of my name (I have a middle letter). What situations are you in that this comes up a lot?

Probably every single health or wellness "Find a Provider" portal lists them A-Z. That's a multi-billion dollar industry. If I was Dr. Zachary Zane, I'd change my name.

AAA Aches and Ailment

Re: U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades

#278

Post by euroderf »

lqet wrote: post #41

I work in academia. When we grade exams, the order of the exams on the stack is the order in which they were collected in the room (people can sit wherever they like). For grading, we are usually 5 people in a single room, and everyone grades a specific exercise for consistency. The exams are getting shuffled heavily , with everyone just grabbing stacks, looking for exams where "their" exercise was not yet graded, an…

For grading essay assignments, and possibly also essay-style exams:

It is important to get a feel for the collective level of writing before grading essays individually, and it is important to avoid over-grading or under-grading essays at the beginning or end of a stream of papers. Therefore I did a three-stage grading process, with three colors of pens:

The first pass, with a red pen, is marking up single-point problems like misspellings and glaring usage errors. Also of course the general level of writing begins to seep in. This pass of course includes all papers, and it can pass fairly quickly.

The second pass, with a green pen, mostly just marks in the margin where a (good) point is made or a conclusion is reached. This is to prepare for the next pass. Again, all papers are done in this pass.

The third pass, in blue pen, is where the quality of the writing is assessed and critiqued. Maybe some short notes in the margins, maybe just comments at the end of the essay.

When students get their papers back, there are some chuckles (or whatevs) when students see all the pretty colors. But after I explain the method and its rationale, the method is clear and understood (and also appreciated?).

Re: U-M finds students with alphabetically lower-ranked names receive lower grades

#280

Post by NikkiA »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #42
zdw wrote: post #15

As someone whose initials are Z and W, I tend to notice alpha sort a lot. Asking a friend whose initials are A and B about this, it's not something they ever noticed. I haven't noticed a grading/ranking difference, but far more frequently I'll hear that "oh, we ran out of item/time/etc. before we got to you", which has made me much more sensitive to issues of planning/organization.

Outside of school I can’t think of even a single instance of alphabetical sorting of my name (I have a middle letter). What situations are you in that this comes up a lot?

Whenever my Doctor's office calls to arrange annual vaccines, I (surname starts with A) get an appointment just before my boyfriend's (surname starts with B) because they invariably phone me about 10-20 minutes before him.
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