{"id":6159,"date":"2018-02-05T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T16:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/?p=6159"},"modified":"2018-12-22T14:39:25","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T21:39:25","slug":"grades-the-random-factor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2018\/02\/05\/grades-the-random-factor\/","title":{"rendered":"Grades: The Random Factor"},"content":{"rendered":"Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"\"How much of your students’ grades in your courses is subject to random chance?<\/p>\n

Is your first reaction a defensive one?<\/p>\n

“Why, NONE, of COURSE!”<\/p>\n

We all like to think we are assessing our students fairly, and that the grades they get are some sort of true, objective reflection of their mastery of our course content.<\/p>\n

Think again.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s start with exams. Of necessity, you can’t ask questions about every single thing you covered(*) in class, assignments, and readings. It’s just not practical.<\/p>\n

(*It’s a handy fantasy to think that just because you ‘covered’ it, they ‘learned’ it.
\nIt just ain’t so.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s imagine how it would look if you\u00a0did<\/strong><\/em> create a comprehensive test.<\/p>\n

This is a super simplified representation of the course content in my course. I have 8 topics, and each square represents the\u00a0stuff<\/strong><\/em> I covered.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If I create a truly comprehensive exam, then I need to ask things on my exam that touch on\u00a0every single<\/strong><\/em> Bit<\/strong> of content. Again, in my super simplified representation, each of my 8 topics has 25 Bits<\/strong> to it, and so my (let’s say Multiple Choice) exam should have 200 questions, each one addressing a different ‘Bit<\/strong>‘.<\/p>\n

That’s completely untenable.<\/p>\n

So your exam, of necessity, picks on a small percent of the course content. Even in a 3-hour exam (which, quite frankly, I think is both ridiculous and cruel), you can only touch on a small portion of the course content. Let’s guess you manage to ask questions that touch on a third of the course content.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Each ‘Bit<\/strong>‘ from the content appears in your exam. In the above image, each ‘Bit<\/strong>‘ that appears in the exam has been replaced with a white square in the original course content. Can you see how much of your content\u00a0didn’t<\/strong> make it into the exam?<\/p>\n