[fsckboy]

your comment incorporates so much ... fail

>It is trivially simple for an educator to write a test that

while it is not trivial to write any test, it is trivial to have the test cover the material that was taught and not the material that wasn't, and that's how tests are written

> every student fails, curve the grades into a normal distribution,

then the bulk of students didn't fail under the normal meaning of grading on a curve (unless you clarify, do you mean the students had a normal distribution of "learning some material", but even the highest cohort didn't learn enough of the material to constitute getting credit for having taken the class?

> and place blame on students while showing a normal distribution of outcomes to administration.

what blame would there be to place on students if a normal distribution is shown to the administration? unless as above, all the students are failed and blamed for failure?

> Do you think that practice produces better learning?

testing students on material taught produces better learning, yes. Grading on a curve is more fair to students than not grading on a curve, as it simplifies the task for the professor to write the exam by better smooths any unevenness in the relative difficulty of the questions across different material.

[forgetbook]

I'll imply numbering:

1] Tests are written in many different ways. There is no regulatory body controlling pedagogy across institution at the college level. At best you can assume an invisible hand of the market for hiring graduates influencing student enrollment decisions, and you'll be introducing too many confounding variables to continue a productive discussion of individual tests.

2] I mean the bulk of students fail the test before the curve is applied. If even the highest cohort didn't learn enough material to constitute getting credit, I would hope they are not simply curved into a passing grade relative to each other and passed along. I would hope they are able to retake the course, learn the material, and demonstrate that learning.

3] The blame for poor performance necessitating grading on a curve to avoid bulk-of-class failure being placed on students for failing to learn, rather than an educator failing to teach.

4] Testing is not what produces learning. Testing attempts to measure competence. Receiving feedback from testing enables students to use the measurements in their learning, but the data point 'we all failed' hardly seems useful. // Grading on a curve evaluates student performance relative to each other. Grading without a curve evaluates student performance relative to the test. You can argue either is more fair if you want, but simplifying the task of the professor writing the exam is hopefully not the goal of college education. Hopefully the goal is to train students into highly competent graduates, who can perform across uneven difficulty in different material.

(edit: testing attempts to measure learning -> testing attempts to measure competence)

[hilbert42]

"At best you can assume an invisible hand of the market for hiring graduates influencing student enrollment decisions"

Yes it's done that and more. For instance, in many universities humanities courses have taken a hit because they're not as lucrative financially in either students numbers or in other ways. My profession is technical but I'm not in favor of nuking the humanities (especially so core subjects, history, philosophy, languages etc.).

What's really been lost from university education is the once-important notion of learning for its own sake—and of student life—the spirit of Gaudeamus igitur. Those notions were there but dying during my time quite some decades ago, today they've been completely subsumed or swallowed up by financial considerations. That, I think, is a shame.

In an era where financial considerations dominate, the whole issue of grades, passing examinations is crucially important because it's coupled more tightly than ever to one's livelihood than in the past. Hence, it's little wonder we're now seeing these issues looming much larger in students' minds than ever they've done in the past.

(In my time student protested and demonstrated and often did so violently (anti-Vietnam war rallies, 1968 student riots etc.) but from my recollection there was none of the angst about courses/grades that there is here today (except of course for usual level of time immemorial complaints that have always been part of the background noise of universities.)

[forgetbook]

Forgive me for being suspicious of any invisible hand based argument.

I hope you'll be glad to hear that in my time, learning for its own sake is/was still seen as important, in humanities as much as any other area.

Freedom from the domination of financial considerations may be based more on individual conditions than systemic ones. There were certainly students worried about money in the 70's--it sounds like many of them are more accurately described as would-be students who simply didn't have the opportunity to attend at all. I do not fault today's would-be students who do have that opportunity for seeing their performance as tightly coupled to their livelihood.

(edit: to clarify, suspicion of an invisible hand argument means "if we can't articulate the cause, how are we purporting to know the effect?")

[hilbert42]

"Forgive me for being suspicious of any invisible hand based argument."

So am I, it's generally wheeled out in the absence of any other sufficiently-developed argument or alternatively as shorthand for one that's too hard to articulate. You're right, if we can't articulate the cause then we've little hope of moving forward.

I also don't fault today's students who consider their studies tightly coupled to their llivelihood, especially so in fields such as engineering.

Whilst I'm glad to hear that learning for its own sake is still seen as important the demise of humanities subjects at many universities in recent years doesn't overfill me with confidence that it will remain so.