Source: Radio New Zealand
A new report into university marking predicts ‘A’s will soon be the most common grade awarded. luckybusiness / 123RF
Authors of a new report into university marking predict ‘A’s will soon be the most common grade awarded.
Think-tank, The New Zealand Initiative, analysed grade data from the country’s eight universities between 2006 and 2024.
Senior research fellow, Dr James Kierstead said the results showed that while A grades had risen, B and C grades had shrunk and that the most common grade – B – could soon be eclipsed.
“It’s about to be an A. The As [are] catching up with the Bs, basically. The Bs are going down and the As are going up as a proportion of all grades awarded.
“If current trends continue, I wouldn’t be surprised if actually this year A was the most common grade at New Zealand Universities.”
According to the report, ‘Fifty Shades of Grades: Grade Compression’, As had risen from 22 percent of all grades in 2006, to 36 percent in 2024 – an increase of 64 percent.
It said the expansion of As had crowded out other grades, resulting in a decline in the variety of grades awarded.
Kierstead said the study built on one published in August that focused just on A grades and pass rates.
He said factors that could contribute to higher marks had been ruled out, including more women (who tended to achieve higher grades), the ratio of staff to students, and smarter highschoolers.
He said it was also unlikely that better teachers were responsible for the current trend.
“The teaching would have to get a lot better because students are performing worse by international benchmarks at secondary school.
“So the teaching would have to be so good that not only is it making up for that … It’s taking worse students and taking them to a level that’s better than before.”
Kierstead said while it was unlikely to be intentional, academics had strong incentives to grade higher and believed the trend was in response to two main pressures that should be mitigated – class size and funding, and student feedback on teachers.
“If they don’t give out good grades there’s a risk that their student numbers will fall, and the main component of funding at New Zealand universities is the number of students you have in your class.”
He said student feedback forms had also become an important factor in assessing promotions, and during job cuts.
Kierstead said no one benefitted from a system where grades weren’t a reliable indicator of performance – it didn’t motivate students to work hard, and “shortchanged” those who did.
He said he’d also spoken to employers who had stopped relying on the university transcript to assess candidates, and were now conducting their own tests.
“They get all these job applications with students with stellar grades and then they start interviewing people, and some are good and a lot of them aren’t very impressive at all.”
Kierstead said if nothing was done to curb ‘grade inflation,’ New Zealand would find itself in the same position as universities in the United States, where A grades became dominant in the 90s and there was a perception that grades were given out “too cheaply”.
He said the rise in A grades in the US undermined public trust in higher education.
“What we’re trying to say with this research is: Beware, pay attention, wake-up New Zealand universities … this is about to be you.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
