Dr James Kierstead: NZ Initiative research fellow on the new reports claiming universities are handing out more 'A' grades

There's revelations a rise in top grades at universities may not be down to New Zealanders getting smarter.

Analysis by the New Zealand Initiative reveals 'A ' grades have increased from 22 percent to 36 percent of all grades since 2006.

B grades have fallen from 47 percent to 38, while C grades have dropped from 20 percent to 17.

NZ Initiative research fellow Dr James Kierstead says 'A' grades are becoming the most common grade for university assignments and that shouldn't be the case.

"It's not really something we want to follow the US in, because grade inflation's been a big deal in the states and it's helped undermine half a dozen universities there."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now there's a little bit of concern that universities at
the moment are handing out A grades too easily. There's
a new report out from the New Zealand Initiative which
shows the number of grades. Number of A grades given
out since two thousand and six has gone up by
sixty four percent to basically now constitute close to forty
percent of all grades. Doctor James Kirstead is a research

(00:20):
fellow at the Initiative and he's with us Hi James
Hi that okay, so what's going on here? How prolific
are these A grades?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, I mean it's between thirty and forty percent of
total grades. And where should it be getting to the
point now where A grades are about to be the
most common grade awarded at New Zealand University, where should
it be? I mean, it's hard to say. It depends
on the cohort, but I think that most people would
think that a's probably shouldn't be the most common grade.
That should probably be a B or a C as

(00:51):
it was in the past. By the way, if you
look at the United States, initially the C was the
most common grade, then B, and now for the last
thirty years, the AA has been the most common at
US universities, So in that sense, we're just catching up
with them, but it's not really something we want to
follow them in. Because great inflation has been a big
deal in the States. It's sort of helped undermine confidence
and universities there, and so I think universities here should

(01:13):
probably think about doing something about the grade inflation so
that doesn't hurt their reputation as well.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
What do you think is causing this?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
I think the academics feel I used to be an
academic myself, so I know this. They feel a lot
of pressure to keep student numbers up because if your
student numbers fall, there's a risk that your program's going
to get cut, and therefore that your job is going
to get cut. So I'm not saying people think about
this entirely consciously or completely cynically, but there's a sense
that if you get a reputation as a harsh grader,
then you probably are going to lose student numbers, and

(01:42):
that's going to put you in a dangerous position. The
other thing is you want good student feedback because that
can help your infromotion, it can help you keep your job,
and there's a sense that if you give out good grades,
then students are going to give you good feedback. So
both of those mechanisms I think are really important.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
I mean, we just put an employer right, because if
you're actually actively if you really really want the smartest
of the smartest, and you're looking for a's, this is
no longer going to tell you what you need to know.
So what do you do?

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, that's exactly right. I mean I've spoken to employers
who said that they had to set up their own testing,
and in the old days, universities would have been reliable.
You know, you could have just outsourced the testing of
students to the universities and they would have been able
to stamp students with a pretty reliable signal. This is
an outstanding student, this is a good student, this is
an okay student, This person really doesn't work very hard.
You know, only accept this person if you really need somebody.

(02:27):
But nowadays, yeah, all it shows now is that all
in a shows now is that that student was in
the top three or forty percent of the distribution.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Okay, what is your what does your gap tell you?
Do you think that? I mean, you're warning the universities
at the moment that basically their credibility is on the line.
But they have all of these motivating factors. What does
your gap tell you they're going to do. Are they
going to stop handing out the a's or just carry
on as they are.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
I think they're going to carry on as they are,
to be perfectly honest, okay, I mean I think the
government might have a role here. I mean if they
think and I'm not saying this because I'm not saying
it's completely because I hate them, I think that there's
a good reason why individual universities wouldn't do that, because
if one university solves the great inflation problem, then they
have harsher grading than the other universities, and then they
risk having fewer students because the students are going to

(03:12):
go to the universities where the grading is easier. So
really there's a role for government here. I think that
we have to fix it at the systemic level. And
so one of the things you can do is make
the student numbers less important for funding allocations, right, because
that was one of the things that drives and the
other thing is about student feedback. So make student feedback
less important how you assess academics, because those are the
two big pressures on academics to give up better and

(03:34):
better grades.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, brilliant, James. It's good to talk to you. M'd appreciate it,
Doctor James Kysted, New Zealand Initiative Research Fellow. For more
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