Evaluating Student Performance In University Level Course Work: The Certification of Academic Accomplishment Reveals a Hidden Conflict In Academe

Although higher education has begun to come to grips with problems in the process of evaluation of student performance, these problems continue to challenge teachers and universities. Grade inflation is rampant; teachers are seemingly unable and often discouraged in their efforts to return the grading system back to a former status when C was an average grade and •A was reserved for the few truly exceptional students. Most teachers know that students expect high grades and will use a variety of methods to bring pressure on teachers who grade more objectively. To complicate the process further, students have access via the world-wide web to a wide variety of term paper and thesis web sites that make plagiarism very easy and very attractive-at the expense of legitimate research and learning. This paper provides a framework for examining the effects of these problems and identifying a hidden conflict that causes them to persist. At the crossroad of a number of critical educational paths lies a decision point wherein teachers must decide whether to avoid conflict with students by awarding mostly high grades, or avoid the inevitable conflict with students\u27 current and future employers and clients by awarding objective grades that certify actual learning and ability. As long as this is seen as an either-or relationship, teachers will opt out of conflict with students, or at best, compromise and satisfy neither alternative. The conflict is supported by the flawed assumption that there is no way to avoid conflict with the student except to award inflated grades