November 04, 2004
More adventures in bad math
Degree grades 'in need of update'
But critics remain unconvinced, saying top grades are becoming easier to achieve.
Two fundamentally opposed ideas, both true. If you give out Firsts [the 'top' degree grade in the UK] to the top 5% of students, and you then increase the number of students by 50%, logically you will be giving out 50% more firsts. If you're still only giving them to the top 5% though, your 'standard' for granting grades hasn't changed, hence "no deterioration in quality".
Given that your increase in student numbers has [generally] resulted in far larger numbers of relatively weak students, more students who would have got 2.1s will now be getting 1sts. And since many departments have decided on their own that they aren't giving out enough 1sts, the fundamental basis for UK degree classifications has completely changed over the last decade.
Bit late for that.
