TY  - RPRT
TI  - Assessment Design and Course Grades: Evidence from Linked College Syllabi and Grade Records
AU  - Koedel, Cory
AU  - Putman, Hannah
AU  - Shores, Kenneth A.
PY  - 2026
T3  - EdWorkingPaper
M1  - 26-1622
PB  - Annenberg Institute at Brown University
DO  - 10.26300/2jxh-qq07
UR  - https://edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1622
AB  - 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.
ER  -