Pass / Fail , A - F , or 0 - 100 ? – Optimal Grading of Eager Students
نویسندگان
چکیده
This paper analyzes optimal grading in a world that focuses on top grades. Students choose an effort level, their performance is graded, and their grade correlates with their future income. Ex-ante, the policy maker chooses the optimal coarseness of the grading scale to maximize student welfare. When choosing their effort, students overweight outstanding – or salient – grades. I show that this behavior leads to excessive effort levels when grading is fully informative, and that coarse grading can be used to counterbalance incentives. Thus, salience can help explain why grading ranges from Pass/Fail scales (tenure decisions) via A-F-scales (school) to fully disclosing scores (e.g. SAT).
منابع مشابه
Evaluating a grading change at UCSD school of medicine: pass/fail grading is associated with decreased performance on preclinical exams but unchanged performance on USMLE step 1 scores
BACKGROUND To assess the impact of a change in preclerkship grading system from Honors/Pass/Fail (H/P/F) to Pass/Fail (P/F) on University of California, San Diego (UCSD) medical students' academic performance. METHODS Academic performance of students in the classes of 2011 and 2012 (constant-grading classes) were collected and compared with performance of students in the class of 2013 (gradin...
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