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Grading Standards and Student Performance in Community College and University Courses.

2012; Project Innovation Austin; Volume: 46; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

2691-3887

John Friedl, David J. Pittenger, Michael Sherman,

Engineering Education and Pedagogy

Research was undertaken to determine whether comparable grading standards are used in evaluating student performance at two-year community colleges and four-year universities. Examination of academic records of 417 students who took college level math at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in fall 2009 compared the performance of those who had previously taken intermediate (high school level) algebra at a community college with those who had taken intermediate algebra at a four-year institution. Although students who transferred intermediate algebra from a community college had earned significantly higher grades in that course, on average, than those who took the course at a four-year university, their subsequent performance in college-level math courses was substantially poorer. This suggests that grade inflation at the community college level may ultimately in lower graduation rates for students who transfer to four year universities with inadequate preparation for courses in the general education or major curriculum. As states seek to create incentives for four-year institutions to increase graduation rates and as they reduce subsidies to higher education by encouraging more students to begin at a less expensive community college and then transfer to a four-year university, the public policy implications of the results of this research become increasingly important. Introduction Tennessee ranks forty-fourth among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in higher education achievement among the adult population. In 2007, 21.8 percent of Tennessee residents 25 years old and over held a bachelor's degree or more. (U.S. Census 2010) This figure is well below the national average of 27.5 percent. The state's six-year graduation rate for students who enrolled in college in 2002 was 51.5 percent, ranking thirty-first among the 50 states and below the national average of 55.5 percent. (National Center for Higher Education Management Systems 2009) Educational attainment is directly correlated with both economic development and personal income. The U.S. Census reports that a person with a bachelor's degree earns on average almost $20,000 per year more than a high school graduate; for a person holding an advanced degree, the difference is more than $34,000 per year. (U.S. Census Bureau 2007) In an effort to increase the educational attainment of Tennesseans and to address the state's economic development, workforce and research needs, the state legislature passed the Complete College Tennessee Act of 2010, which was signed by Governor Phil Bredesen on January 26, 2010. (1) The Act requires the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) to develop a statewide master plan which, among other things, includes the development of a new funding formula for state-supported colleges and universities. The formula must result in an outcomes-based model which shall include timely progress toward degree completion and degree production and compliance with transfer and articulation principles. Further, the Act provides that after July 1, 2012, four-year state universities shall not offer remedial or developmental courses, that is, courses whose content is at the high school level. (2) These provisions of the Complete College Tennessee Act represent the cornerstone of a new higher education policy for the state. By shifting developmental course offerings exclusively to the community colleges, mandating seamless articulation for transfer students and graduates of two-year institutions into four-year universities, and revising the funding formula to create incentives for universities to increase four-year graduation rates, the legislation is intended to increase the percentage of the population with a bachelor's degree. Shortly after the enactment of the law, the Chairman of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, Jack Murrah, wrote in an editorial that [t]here was universal agreement. …