Page 232 - DEDU504_EDUCATIONAL_MEASUREMENT_AND_EVALUATION_ENGLISH

Educational Measurement and Evaluation

Notes Table 3 : Grade-wise distribution of cases (5-point scale)
Q. No. Letter grade Interval No. of cases (%) Grade value
1 A 1.5 σ to 7 5
2 B 0.5 to 1.5 24 4
3 C – 0.5 to 0.5 38 3

4 D – 1.5 to – 0.5 24 2
5 E – to – 1.5 7 1

Advantages
Grading on the curve has the following advantages :
(i) Pass-fail concept is eliminated; there is no grade indicating failure.
(ii) Grade of a student indicates his position relative to his group.
(iii) Grades provide comparability across the curricular area, as normal distribution ensures
uniformity in spread of scores.
(iv) Grades are usable for recording growth of individual students.
(v) Grades provide for meaningful additivity to arrive at G.P.A.
(vi) Test difficulty will not affect distribution of grades.
Problems
(i) One limitation of ‘grading on the curve is that percentages of cases receiving different
grades is pre-decided and the individual’s grade is decided by the performance of the
group, not by his performance alone.
(ii) This system fails to reward improved teaching and learning. An extra ordinary group taught
by good teacher leading to high achievement scores of all or majority of students will also
get the same percentage of cases as A, B, C, D, E grades and not all getting As or As and Bs,
because pre-conceived number of cases are to be placed in each group.
Comparison of Overall Performance of Students (G.P.A.)
The method of relative grading allows comparison of students’ performance within as well as
across the subjects. Difficulty arises when we have to compare overall performance (covering all
the subjects) of students. For that we can compute the G.P.A. when the method of relative grading
is used for assessment in various subjects (Table 4).
Table 4 : Grading On a 5-Point Scale (A-E) or (5-1)

Grades awarded in different subjects
Students G.P.A.
English Biology Chemistry Physics Maths
P A B A B A 4.6

R B B C A A 4.2
S C B A B B 4.0
(i) For P the grade values are 5 + 4 + 5 + 4 + 5 = 23 5 = 4.6
(ii) For R the grade values are 4 + 4 + 3 + 5 + 5 = 21 5 = 4.2
(iii) For S the grade values are 3 + 4 + 5 + 4 + 4 = 20 5 = 4.0

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