On Grading
One of the most important faculty functions (apart from the education of budding lawyers) is to appraise the abilities of students based upon a single snapshot known as the “final exam” or “final.” The grade ultimately earned by the exam taker reflects the professor’s appraisal of the student based solely on what the student wrote on that exam.
The difficulty with grading is not with the administering of the final exam, but rather how students and faculty perceive the discourse on grades.
The discussions about grades can frequently be confrontational and accusatory. I once had to take a physically defensive stance when an undergraduate student, seeking to get in to business school, became physically threatening over an A-. Another student, at a different law school, called me a name that rhymes with “stick.” These weren’t professional discussions, they were accusations that I was an evil professor who was gravely mistaken about the quality of the exam answer they had put forth.
As someone who has been graded through two graduate programs, I understand the unhappy feeling that grades convey. I heard my fellow students, sometimes in a single breath, proclaim they had “gotten an A” in one class but that a professor “gave them a C”. The difficulty with that sentence is that it presumes that the “A” was earned but the “C” was not.
Grades are high stakes, but students should take care not to put too much weight on them. Jobs, clerkships, coif, reputation and the like are all based in part upon grades. And that external validation and the drive to achieve it can be staggering. But grades themselves are only a tiny snapshot of any particular person. A person receiving a “C” is not stupid, lazy, or somehow inadequate in every way. To me, a C answer is a competent answer. A “B” answer means that the student has seen some connections, and an “A” answer means the student has clearly demonstrated in the exam mastery of the subject matter and all of its nuances. At worst, a C to me means the student had a bad day, there was some miscommunication that took place between the exam and the answer, or something else. But I do not for a minute think that an “A” signals genius while a “C” means someone is not.
What should faculty do?
All of my colleagues, ever single one of us, take great care in grading exams. I for one agonize over them, reading each at least twice before assigning numbers and establishing relative baselines. I like reading the exams, but it is the last part, the assigning of numbers, that always bothers me, for all of the reasons I stated previously.
Of course, practical realities constrain us in grading. The first is the grade cap. Grades must fall usually between a 2.8 and 3.1. Unless we are giving everyone identical grades, a strategy I refuse to employ, every exam is weighed relative to other exams. That means that to some degree a student’s grade is determined by how well he or she does relative to other students.
The second largest constraint is that the professor can only grade on what is in the exam. We really, truly, honestly are usually unable to tell from the writing who the student is, and thus what we presume the student knows (our “preanalytic vision” of how we think the student ought to do) does not enter into the equation.
Students probably have come to suspect that professors do not all grade alike. I believe that is entirely true. But that does not mean the grading is arbitrary. All professors, like your future bosses in law firms and elsewhere, have different experiences and priorities.
Professor ought to communicate to you what we expect on the exam prior to your taking it. Professors should make clear what they expect in an exam answer before the exam takes place. Some like to have issue spotting questions. Others like depth of analysis. Others stick to multiple choice. My chosen exam technique mirrors how my areas of law are practiced We professors are looking for the same things in different ways: That you understand what facts are relevant, what law is relevant, and the policies behind the law. The implementation differs, but our goals are the same.
We also have different views as to how an exam ought to be taken. For example, some of us believe you should spend up to one-fourth of your time on reading and prepping an answer in a time constrained exam, while others believe that writing should take place much more quickly. It should be up to the student to ask the professor about these expectations if the professor is not forthcoming about his or her expectations.
Knowing the professor’s chosen style is not a panacea, but it is important to success on a final exam.
What Should Students Do?
I encourage students generally to look at their exams and to discuss them with me. However, sometimes I have observed this go horribly awry, and why the language of ownership or blame discussed above matters.
In my experience, students with grades lower than they expected are the ones who most likely come to talk about their exams. This should not be the case. An “A” answer is not necessarily a perfect one. And everyone can improve upon answers they have given, particularly on a time-constrained exam.
Students should definitely talk to professors about their exams, with a focus on how to improve the exam. It is a humbling experience to be graded lower than you anticipated, but I caution students to be careful in how this is approached. In the course of such discussions, less careful students have made it clear that the sole purpose of the visit is to accuse faculty of grading wrongdoing, incompetence, and error. In that hostile environment, the student does not ask for his or her exam, does not seek to compare his or her exam with the best answer submitted or a model answer, and thus no learning or improvement can take place. The exam in that setting fails to be what it is supposed to be: A tool for learning.
A better approach is for the student to ask to read his or her exam and the best exam answer given in class, and then compare. The exam questions should be read again as well. It should be done ahead of meeting with the professor. The student should ask at least the following questions: Did I answer all the questions asked? Did I follow instructions? Was my exam addressing the call of the question? Does it have a structure that flows?
Students who reread their exams are often surprised that what they thought they wrote does not match what they actually wrote. Once the student compares the best exam answer with their own, often times the student will see their own errors. But afterward, the professor should discuss the differences. Grading exams is often like watching a golf swing. Some wield the facts, the law, and the policies behind the wall in a way that is equivalent to the way a professional swings a golf club: All of the elements are there in a beautiful, simple, and elegant motion. Others’ exams are more like my golf swing: All the levers of the swing are in play, but it isn’t the same as a golfing professional, even if the golf pro and I are doing roughly the same things.
I write this because I would like the dialogue about grades to be different than the one I’ve been experiencing. I want the focus of the discussion to be where it should be: Namely, I want exam discussions to be about learning.
Note: The views contained herein are my own and do not purport to be those of any other member of the faculty.
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Darren Bush, Ph.D.
Professor, I appreciate your candor and honesty in your exculpation of your thoughts of the subject of grading. I am not a current student but I look forward to your pedagogy someday in the future.
I agree, the value is in the discussion - if you can get one. I have been in and discussed three of my exams - none were particularly bad grades. Only one professor actually chatted with me about how I could have improved. The other two just told me I did a good job so there wasn't much to discuss. Truthfully, once I leave the exam, I am so wrung out I can't even remember what most of the questions were or what I answered.
Professor, though you put forth a strong case, as a professional coming back into the academic setting with a graduate degree in Global Business Administration from Thunderbird, I am terrified at the rigidity of the law school grading system and the often times misleading emphasis that is placed on finishing in the top 5 to 10% of your class. I think it is only fair to recognize that the law school community by adhering to such strict curve standards, the ABA, and certainly ranking magazines do a very poor job in discussing hiring relative to grades in professional terms and setting more subjective frameworks for professors to operate within.
In essence, here has been my experience in law school to this point. 1) Students don't communicate in their first few weeks as a 1L because they believe that somehow communication erodes a competitive edge they might have in exam performance. This, in turn leads to a constrained perception of what professors are teaching them. Instead of asking, as I try to do, how is this applied in the practice of law, many questions are oriented in order to better understand theory than applicability. Maybe this is the MBA in me, but this is a terribly concerning approach. It is fine to understand theory. In fact it is a wonderfully useful tool. However, it fails to prepare students for the realities that hit them when they enter into the interview and marketing process.
I have taken the time to direct the discussion down a slight tangent because I agree with a key point you make. Not everything is about grades. Unfortunately, law school is often comprised of many students who come directly from an undergraduate education with little professional training or exposure to the fact that the training you may have received in college doesn't mean a thing if your business tells you to approach it from a different perspective. Thus, what I see around me is that students have already settled into a mindset that is not grounded with a successful approach to a career in law or business. Instead of seeing the forest and then identifying trees, they are seeing trees and identifying leaves.
Now, I have some wonderful professors who understand that I am a father of two, a former consultant, and have made a major gamble to come back to law school in hopes of extending my MBA from Thunderbird into a international transactional career. The gamble in giving up a 6 figure job lies not in my academic abilities and certainly not in my professional accomplishments which I might fall back on, but instead lies directly at the heart of the system you somewhat defend: grading. Even though I attempt to keep my practical mindset about seeing the forest and therefore the applicability of law, I shutter with the thought of taking food out of the mouths of my children, despite all the hours I put into my studies, because of a system that forces professors to constrain their grading on a curve basis in such a way that for every A, there is essentially a C. I wish it were as simple as asking a professor, "what do you want on the final exam?" If that were the case, my fears would subside dramatically as these would serve as commands no different that a client provides a consultant, or a boss an employee. But we know that it is not that simple.
In summary, I believe that your heart is certainly in the right place. Your arguments are quite strong in certain areas. However, I believe you fail to recognize the role that grading has on the lives of individuals who are participating in this, what I now term affectionately to my wife, "law school game". Though I have a wide network of friends and brothers who are employed at major law firms where I might pursue my career, there is still an overriding emphasis for me to obtain an A's in most of my classes in order to fortify my position so that I will not let down my children and wife and diminish their sacrifice in putting up through three years of a drastically changed lifestyle. I am sure that you can understand how that thought process leads to tremendous internal pressure, even for someone used to dealing with doctors, CIOs, and CEOs of major hospital organizations on a daily basis. Such pressure originates from a grading system that creates opportunities, even though I understand that a strong GPA does not guarantee a job without effective networking and marketing. So, as a dad, husband, and grown man, of course I worry about the system of grading at the degree of subjectivity involved. Unfortunately, I can't help but conclude that your perspective on measuring a C versus an A is based on a theoretical mode of thinking that doesn't exist for individuals such as myself. In fact, it is part of what scares those of us who risk so much to attend law school, believing that the short term sacrifice will result in a long-term gain.
Thank you for allowing me to reply.
Sincerely,
Richard Seagraves