{"id":19636,"date":"2017-03-08T08:15:52","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T13:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/edc\/?p=19636"},"modified":"2021-08-13T10:10:49","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T14:10:49","slug":"blog-whats-an-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/2017\/blog-whats-an-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog: What’s an A+?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics<\/em><\/p>\n

About 10 years ago during a lunch conversation that drifted into a discussion on student grades, a colleague asked, “What is an A+?”<\/p>\n

The question was of course rhetorical.\u00a0My colleague simply used it to point out the deficiency of the letter-grade system when it comes to distinguishing top students. I was used to a numeric-grade system as a student.\u00a0When I first joined Carleton, I did find it surprising that only letter grades appeared in the transcripts for courses in STEM disciplines.<\/p>\n

At Carleton, as well as at many other universities, A+ covers a 10-point range, whereas B+, C+, or D+ covers at most half that range.\u00a0From my experience, there is often a notable difference between students at the top of the A+ range and those at the bottom. However, it is difficult to say the same for students in the D+ range, for example.<\/p>\n

For the A+ grade to make sense, it must be a grade that is incredibly difficult to obtain. Otherwise, collapsing a 10-point range into one single grade could make judging a student’s academic ability from the transcript difficult.\u00a0A piece in The Charlatan<\/em><\/a> some years ago also described the impact of Carleton\u2019s letter-grade system.<\/p>\n

One might argue that students in the A+ range are all academic high-achievers and so there is little need to differentiate between them. Such an argument, unfortunately, does not seem to be supported by evidence.\u00a0Studies have shown<\/a> that there is a difference in performance between employees with high ability and those with very high ability. A massive longitudinal study<\/a> on mathematically precocious youth showed<\/a> that intelligence test scores within the top one per cent were still strong predictors of later creative accomplishments.<\/p>\n

A mark of 100 is very far from a mark of 90. A letter-grade system that reflects this reality would be quite desirable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics About 10 years ago during a lunch conversation that drifted into a discussion on student grades, a colleague asked, “What is an A+?” The question was of course rhetorical.\u00a0My colleague simply used it to point out the deficiency of the letter-grade system when it comes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nBlog: What's an A+? 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