Grade expectations

The scenario is all too common. But hours of lecture, laboratory work and studying seem to get Joe nowhere; he receives a D for his first semester's efforts. His advisor encourages him to reconsider his anticipated career, and Joe ultimately decides to major in history. The issues at play in this scenario, University faculty, administrators and students say, are plaguing schools throughout the nation. The University is no exception. The slow but consistent grade inflation in the humanities, especially over the last 20 years, has resulted in students who expect to receive higher marks in humanities courses than in science courses. This perception among students is turning more students toward the humanities. The high pace and pressure of "hard science" courses such as biology, chemistry and physics, combined with the competition created by distributional curve grading, act to weed out students who do not think they have a natural ability in such subjects. · "Enrollment in the sciences is surprisingly low," College of Arts and Sciences Dean Matthew Santirocco said. "The difficulty of the subjects may be one reason, but I think to concentrate on that alone misrepresents other issues." Santirocco said there are four factors that pull students away from sciences and toward the humanities: the low quality of teaching in the sciences beginning at the high school level and continuing throughout universities, a general "math phobia," the tendency of students to take courses with which they are already familiar, and an attitude of "careerism" among students. Poor presentation of math and sciences in elementary and secondary schools begins to steer students away from sciences even before they reach the University, Santirocco said. The massive size and often "dehumanizing" experience of introductory level science courses, he added, can often complete the task of turning students off to these fields. The perception that humanities and social sciences courses are easier than courses requiring knowledge of mathematics also results in lower math and science enrollments. "Many humanities courses are no easier than the sciences," Santirocco said. "The statement [that humanities are easier than sciences] grossly misrepresents the levels of intellectual challenge that the humanities present to students." The bottom line for many undergraduates who plan on attending graduate and professional schools, Santirocco said, is the telltale grade- point average. "Students choose courses based on the often mistaken belief that only directly practical subjects will help advance their professional careers," he added. And the end result, Santirocco said, is unimaginative course selection, where many students fail to take advantage of the wide selection of courses offered. "Undergraduates at Penn have more courses to choose from than at virtually any other college in America," Santirocco said. "It is therefore nothing short of tragic when students don't take full advantage of this richness." According to intellectuals at the forefront of American academia, the trend of grade inflation -- the steady rise in average grades across the academic board -- is contributing to the movement of students away from sciences. The deciding factor for many is the fact that while the average grades in humanities courses have risen dramatically, science averages have not kept up, putting science students at an initial disadvantage. "Student expectations [for grades] in humanities courses was never what it is now," English Department Chairperson John Richetti said. "C in a non-science course was fair twenty years ago. Nowadays the sort of minimum unless you don't show up is a B or B-minus." Student expectations, Richetti said, pose a problem for humanities professors that science professors might not have -- expectations influence how teachers give their grades. "I think twice before I give somebody a C or a C-plus because its seen as a terrible grade," Richetti said. "It becomes unfair if all of my colleagues are grading from B-minus and up for me to use the old scale." Richetti said the holdouts --those professors who continue to give lower grades -- are not popular with students. Grading, he added, has become a taboo subject among humanities professors. "Grading is something we never talk about, partly because it is so hard to set a standard," Richetti said. "The sciences are quantitative. If you get it right you get it right. "It's always been harder to find objective criteria in English and history," he added Richetti said he has started to give objective exams to measure his students' mastery of the material, and to necessitate more uniform grading procedures. English professor Alice Kelley said students are sometimes very surprised when they receive failing grades in humanities courses. One of her students who had done work meriting an F a few years ago asked her for an explanation when he saw the grade on his transcript. "I kept telling him that he was failing the course and he came to me [when he received his grades] and said 'I thought it was impossible to fail an English course'," Kelley said. The situation becomes "sticky," she added, when students are exposed to differences in grading standards among professors. "It's hard when a student comes in and says, 'How could you give me a C, I've been getting nothing but A's in my other courses.'," she said. "If a student has been led to believe that the kind of work they've been doing is invariably A work, it is quite a shock when they realize that it is not." Physics Department Chairperson David Balamuth said the objective nature of the sciences makes grading easier for professors. "Everyone understands what level of performance is necessary for a given grade," he said. He added that the movement away from sciences is partly due to the higher grades given in the humanities. "When I was an undergraduate, to get excellent grades in both the sciences and the humanities required what was flat out working all the time," Balamuth said. "In a physics course, if you do no work at all, you receive an F, but the perception is that if you do not work in a humanities course you may get a C or even a B." College junior Sanjay Khicha seems to be caught between the worlds of science and humanities. As a pre-med English major, Khicha experiences both the fierce competition of his science classes and the time-consuming nature of his English classes. Khicha said, though, that he does not think one aspect of his education is any more difficult than the other. "It all has to do with personal aptitude," Khicha said. "There are some people who can ace a physics test but can't read a monologue." He said that the competitive nature of medical schools puts pre-meds in a stressful situation, making humanities classes a break from the pressure. "Humanities classes are a release from the classes that they take for their future careers," he said. "The atmosphere is more relaxed." Khicha said one of his science professors confessed to the students that the volume of pre-meds in the class precluded him from making class material more creative. Lack of a stringent agenda in English classes, Khicha added, enables more creativity and makes them ultimately more interesting. "It's hard to be enthusiastic about an organic molecule as opposed to being enthusiastic about a love affair in a great poem," he said. Few students have chosen to pursue courses of study as well rounded as Khicha's. This fact plagues the science and the humanities worlds alike. The University's Institute for Research in Higher Education is currently examining trends in grade inflation and course selection. They will present a report to the federal government by late February, said the Institute's Associate Director Susan Shaman. Shaman said over 100,000 transcripts of students graduating from American universities in the spring of 1991 are being examined, and a database is being compiled to examine the material that exists. So far, she said, the analysis has proven to be interesting. "We are looking at the science courses students take in the first year of study, and seeing if there is a split from that point, whether they go on in the sciences or not," Shaman said. The study is a particular milestone, Shaman added, because its funding is coming from both the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation, two groups that rarely co-sponsor studies. "It is obviously a very important issue for both [parties]," Shaman said. Astronomy and Astrophysics Undergraduate Chairperson Benjamin Shen, a National Science Foundation board member, is currently chairing the NSF task force on scientific literacy. Among the issues that are being discussed is how to improve science courses aimed at nonmajors. The task force's recommendations will be unveiled this summer, Shen said. The difference between the sciences and humanities, however, may run deeper than the clash between objective and subjective grading, math phobia and the career objectives of students. The two fields may just have different goals. "Humanistic education is thought to be something other than a contest, whereas in the sciences it is Darwinian survival of the fittest," Richetti said. "The humanities are into spreading knowledge and self consciousness -- the grades are sort of an afterthought," he added. "In a way, scientific education is about turning out scientists." Shaman agreed, saying that scientific education can sometimes be about "screening rather than nurturing," whereas the humanities encourage people more to "make their mistakes, learn from them, and move on." She said that in an attempt to train much-needed scientists, science professors may be undergoing a change of approach and attitude toward their teaching.

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