College Mathematics Beliefs and Belonging Survey
Category: Student Well-Being
Grade inflation is of increasing concern on college campuses, yet little is known about the course-level practices associated with higher grades. We examine one such practice: assessment design. Using syllabi from more than 400 undergraduate courses at four public universities, we identify criterion-relevant (CR) assessments—which require comparable demonstrations of knowledge or skill that can be evaluated against common standards—and measure their share of each course grade. We find that courses with larger CR shares have systematically lower grades across progressively rich fixed-effects models, including models with instructor fixed effects. In our preferred specification, a one-standard-deviation increase in the CR share is associated with a 0.20-point reduction in course-average GPA. Although our data are observational, the relationship is remarkably robust. Our findings identify assessment design as a strong predictor of grades and potential policy lever for institutions concerned about grade inflation.
Keywords
grade inflation; grading; assessment design; criterion-relevant assessment; syllabi
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/2jxh-qq07
