1y ago

Researchers find lower grades given to students with surnames that come later in alphabetical order

As graders go on grading, their comments become more frustrated and their good-will becomes much sloppier. At least that's the hypothesis to explain this. Researchers found the reverse effect on graders who sorted in reverse-alphabetical order.

Not The Onion @lemmy.world

Sam_Bass @lemmy.world

1y ago

The Dog Ate My Homework

phys.org /news/2024-04-grades-students-surnames-alphabetical.html

27 comments

I’m a graduate student who does a lot of grading. Canvas gives me an option to: 1. Hide students’ names while grading and 2. sort in order of submission instead of alphabetical order, so I make sure to use both of those options to reduce any biases like that.
- Why in order of submission? Why not random?
  
  I only get two options: Alphabetical order and submission order. If I had random I would use it.
Semi related: I'm studying for a Linux certification and at the end of each chapter they have 10 practice questions with answers in the back of the book. Almost every time, the explanations of the answers get shorter until there's basically just the answer by question 10. It feels like they just got tired of working
I used to be a teaching assistant at university, and never sorted by name. But based on my experience I don't think it's frustration that accounts for the disparity, it's that as you see more and more assignments you start getting a feel for common issues and are able to point them out more easily. I would always do two passes because of that to ensure that I normalized the weight of my marking.
- I agree with this. It's a bit like the first 2 pancakes, you have to go back over the first half a dozen once you're in the zone.
  I used to grade hard copies a lot, after I graded I'd put them in order from best to worst (numerical grades) and then do quick comparisons between an assignment and its neighbours in the pile. It's an easy way to "quality control".
  As for the comments, that's a self-discipline issue. If you're giving, say, 4 positives and 4 negatives per assignment and have standard ways of phrasing, it shouldn't deteriorate.
I wonder just how big of a difference your place in the alphabetic order makes in general, because it appears everywhere in life
- It was enough for me to change my last name to "Aaaamazing"
Is this on paper? Who would sort them?
*On a program called Canvas
surnames start with A, B, C, D or E received a 0.3-point higher grade out of 100 possible points than compared to when they were graded randomly. Likewise, students with later-in-the-alphabet surnames received a 0.3-point lower grade—creating a 0.6-point gap.
Random is always the way to go.
So ... graders are fallable humans?
- Yea, but this kind of work is needed to encourage blind marking as the default, and not just when standardised testing is involved
  
  I think just randomized order would be enough. It is plausible for teachers to keep track of students' individual progress.
Well I guess I got one less excuse for my bad grades, good thing trades pay well

27 comments