Xref: utzoo comp.edu:1645 sci.math:5214 sci.physics:5284
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!mailrus!ncar!gatech!hubcap!panoff
From: panoff@hubcap.UUCP (Robert M. Panoff)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Student and Course Integrity
Summary: sabotage dies when the curve dies
Message-ID: <3953@hubcap.UUCP>
Date: 20 Dec 88 20:16:30 GMT
References: <1131@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu> <1887@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> <859@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>
Organization: Clemson University, Clemson, SC
Lines: 30

In article <859@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>, kolb@handel.colostate.edu. (Denny Kolb - Professor of Existential Metaphysics ) writes:
> In article <885@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
> >
> >Why would anyone try to sabotage another student?  There's nothing in it for
> >the saboteur.
> >
> In this instance, it was definitely to a pre-med students advantage to 
> sabotage the grade of another student.  The poorer everyone else does, the
> easier it is to get the A.
> 

I was a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis where it
seemed that half the undergraduates were pre-med.  There was no sabotage
ever reported in the physics department (unlike math or chemistry) since
the physics professors made it absolutely clear that there was NO CURVE.
Everyone who scored 90-100 got an A.  And if no one did, no one would
get an A.  All work was graded on this basis (I have since adopted this
for my own grading): on a 10 point problem, if the work shown was
"A-quality" work, 9 or 10 points were given.  If "B-quality" was the
judgement, then 8 or 9 points, etc.  When everything is totaled for
each test and at the end of the term, 90-100 is an A. By construction.
No curve. No sabotage. No advantage to do better than the perchild
next to you. All you had to do was "A-quality" work. So it isn't easier
to get the "A" if others do worse. (parenthetical remark...notice on
this scale there is a huge difference between an F and a zero, so it
is always better to try and fail -- still may get 50% of the points--
than to cheat and get a zero.)

-- 
rmp, for the Bob's of the World