Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe purpose of the present research was to study two selected groups of professors and determine whether or not their expressed attitudes, liberal or conservative, toward grading behaviors was a reflection of general personality characteristic, sometimes described as authoritarian versus nonauthoritarian and also whether such expression was related to actual grading behavior. For the sample of this study 60 professors were selected from a total of 250 who completed the grading practices questionnaire during Autumn quarter, 19690 Thirty male professors (Group A) were classified as liberal in their attitudes tard grading systems by their positive responses to pass-fail and other alternative grading approaches. Group B, also consisting of 30 male professors» was classified as conservative or traditional in their attitudes toward the grading system by their negative responses to pass-fail and other alternative grading systems. The two groups studied were compared on their responses to the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale, on their mean ratings from the ASUU Faculty-Course Evaluation Report, on their actual grading behaviors (Grade Distribution Data) for the courses they taught during the past two years, and on grade point averages computed from their grade distribution data. The significance of the differences between the corresponding means from the above sources was obtained by means of t tests. As it was hypothesized, the data in this study showed a significance of difference between those professors who preferred liberalization of grading practices at the University of Utah and those who did note In comparing the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale scores, it was found that the professors who responded to the grading practices questionnaire in a more liberal direction scored significantly less authoritarian, p <0001, than the professors with conservative responses. Also the data. indicated that there was a significant relationship, p <.001, between professors' attitudes toward grading practices and their grading behaviors. Students in lower division and upper division courses taught by professors with liberal attitudes toward grading (and also low authoritarianism scale scores) received significantly, p < . 001, higher mean grade s than students in lower division and upper division courses taught by professors with conservative attitudes toward the grading behaviors (and also high authoritarian scale scores)o No significant relationship existed between the grading behavior of the two groups in graduate division courses. The analysis of mean scores of student ratings on teaching awarded to the professors indicated that the professors with liberal attitudes toward grading (and low authoritarianism scale scores) were perceived to be significantly, p < 0 001, more adequate instructors than the professors with conservative attitudes toward grading (and high authoritarianism scale scores). In the final analysis of this StUdY9 empirical evidence indicated that the professors who answered the grading practices questionnaire in a more liberal direction score significantly lower on authoritarianism, are .recommended significantly more by their students, and grade their students significantly higher than the professors who answered the grading practices questionnaire in a more conservative direction