Korean Job Discussion Forums

[stevemcgarrett]

Does your university require you to use the bell curve when assigning semester grades to your undergraduates?

If so, what's their reason: department, school, or MOE policy? How do you feel about it?

If not, why do you suppose the admins refrain from making you conform?

[OiGirl]

For classes with more than 20 students, it is required.
For classes with less than 20, it is not required (although strongly encouraged at the department level.)

While classes started out at 20, they have shrunk since then. The top student will probably be bumped up to an A, but no bell-curving is going to happen around here.

[happeningthang]

In my last job, in the first semester, I was told that I should use bell curve grading. It seemed pretty unfair since I had a pretty good class, so I ignored that advice and graded based on the results, which saw a top heavy class with 50% scoring a B or higher, and a big gap between the others who didn't show up to class, or stared out the window when they were there.

It was always left to the secretaries of the department to inform me of administration policies, and they mentioned I should drop some higher students down, and raise some of the lower students. I must have misheard, and left the grades as they were. Mind you it all goes through administration after I submit the grades, so they could have made any changes they wanted to without me knowing.

In any case nothing was said, but the next semester I was told I could only have a certain amount of A students. Thankfully it worked out in that class that the grades fitted the curve, so all was well.

[stevemcgarrett]

happeningthang:

Interesting. They probably did alter some of your grades, which makes you look like a liar if you tell your students their final grades before it's official. Then again, the students probably know the game.

I find the practice abominable, really. It's no only unfair fundamentally but flies in the face of everything performance assessment advocates.

I never encountered this in China, regardless of the university's reputation, nor in a few other Asian countries. I wonder if this is also the practice in Japan or is a uniquely Korean phenomenon? The latter explanation wouldn't surprise me in the least.

OiGirl:

What is there explanation for differentiating with larger classes?

[OiGirl]

[stevemcgarrett]

OiGirl:

Well, that's par for the course. Only informing you on a "need to know" basis when they deem you have a need to know. Certainly not confined to Korean academia--prevalent in much of Asian education, unfortunately.

[HapKi]

No bell curve at my 2 year college.
For 1st year students, I have total freedom in my grading.
For 2nd year students, it gets a little trickier, especially if they have a job waiting for them after graduation, or already had a job (part-time student).

[stevemcgarrett]

Hapki:

Are you in Seoul? It's interesting that you're given more leeway with the first year students. Just the opposite where I am.


Anyone out there have their department dean tell them it's "MOE policy?"

[hogwonguy1979]

my univ we are limited in the number of As and Bs we can give so its sort of a bell curve

at least we dont have to give As and Bs to students that deserve less. It does make me mad when I have to limit my high grades. On the upside I can always point to the univ policy if they gripe about their grade.

What blows me away how univ admins dont understand the nature of how bell curves occur in nature. If my class section has 90% As, I bet there will be a section with 10% As.

[stevemcgarrett]

Korean educational administrators and intelligent governance are oxy-moronic, I'm afraid.

I wonder if this stuff happens in Japan. It seldom does in Chinese higher education. Actually, in the latter, the problem is often the opposite: using connections to pass courses or getting more than one chance to pass a course one should have failed--except in the key universities.

[Young FRANKenstein]

My last uni had a policy that bell curves were for theory courses, not practical courses. English conversation was categorized as practical, so no bell curve necessary; fail at will.

At my current uni, it's on a departmental basis, but almost all of them use the bell.

[Richard Krainium]

30% A - 40% B - 30% CDF. It's a competitive business. Gotta take care of your customers. At first I was , then I felt , now I just and .

[Drew345]

I am also on the 30-A 40-B 30 CDF rule. At first it caused me stress, because it is unfair to the students in a good class, and difficult for me to knock down some grades in the good classes.
After a couple of years, it turns out that yes, each semester one or two students deserving a B get a C because they are in the best class ( and a couple of C students in the bad class get a break and get a B). The trade off for this is that the students get the same distribution regardless of which instructor they get. No instructors can grade easy, no instructors can grade hard. I see the advantage outweighing the disadvantage in this case; it is good to have all the instructors grade in line with each other.
How does the Uni enforce this? Easy, the computer will not accept our grades unless we input the correct distribution.

[PRagic]

Officially, our university-wide policy does have a maximum percentile cutoff for As (40%) and Bs (50%) for any undergraduate course taken in English. Unofficially, our department likes us to grant the highest number of As and Bs possible in order to keep interest up for content courses taught in English.

For grad classes, however, the gloves are off.

[youmepicnic]

At my university, as a general rule, 20% of the students get an A, 40% get a B, and the other 40% recieve a C, D or an F.

I think its crap. Some of my classes have a lot of great students. This system makes it so ones who would have gotten an A, recieve a B or less. They work hard and if they fall in the 100-90%, I think they deserve an A.

On the other hand, I have some crap classes where 50% deserve an F, and this system doesnt allow me to grade them this way.

I changed the passcode in the uni grading system (its all computers) and this will keep the freaks from changing grades. Its funny that Korean uni students will b!t@h and complain about 1 or 2 points they THINK they deserve. I had a student e mail me and TELL me that I gave them a C- and they earned a B grade. THis was based on sincere attendance. lol.
How out of touch is that?

In any case, its a laughable issue in my office. You can only do what the computer allows you, and I think the admin likes it.

cheers