As a trial, a number of faculty have used plus/minus grading since the fall 2004 quarter and will continue to do so through the 2005-2006 academic year, said Dan Mitchell, the Foothill- De Anza College District’s Academic Senate president, in his presentation at Tuesday’s Plus/Minus Grading Introductory Workshop in Conference Room A.
The plusses and minuses did not appear on the students’ transcripts, but were used to study the effects this grading system would have on the average GPA. Current grades are A, B, C, D and F.
The Board’s decision to fully implement plus/minus grading in fall 2006 will be revised if the pilot study indicates a "substantial" effect on students’ grades.
The result of the study conducted by the Institutional Research and Planning Department "shows no substantial adverse impact on students," according to researchers.
Mitchell said that the average GPA’s slight decline from 2.92 to 2.91 in the trial is not one "we can draw a conclusion from, and is not enough to prompt a revision," Mitchell said one of the factors left out during this partial implementation period is the motivation for students who have a "B," for example, to work that much harder in order to turn their grade into a "B+." This could have caused an overestimation in the study of the negative impact on grades.
The De Anza Student Body Senate will vote on March 1 whether to support the implementation of plus/minus grading.
The "bad news" for those who oppose implementation is that the decision is, "by tradition and law," solely for the faculty to make, said Mitchell.
"That doesn’t mean we don’t listen," he said as he answered questions and addressed opposing arguments. Student Senator Yessenia Ramirez said that an "A-" would result in a 3.7 GPA rather than a 4.0, thus ensuring that "4.0 students [will] become nearly extinct."
"There is no evidence to support that," said Mitchell. Student Senator Shrey Prasad gave a presentation supporting Mitchell’s argument.
He pointed out that plus/minus grading is consistent with the UC/ CSU system, "B+" students can get a 3.3 rather than a 3.0, and that effort can be measured more precisely with plus/minus grading.
English Professor and Academic Senate member Lydia Hearn, who taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara before coming to De Anza, gave another argument for plus/minus grading.
She said universities do take such marks into consideration.
Mitchell said he believed that a change to full implementation of plus/minus grading would lead to an increase in students’ GPAs.
