Grade inflation in UK higher education

Abstract

This paper examines the continual increase in the proportion of ‘good’ honour degrees awarded by UK universities since the mid-2000s. This trend has brought with it the charge of ‘grade inflation’ that may reflect falling standards in UK higher education. This issue has been raised in the national press and in government which brings into question the usefulness of the current degree classification system. Using a stochastic frontier strategy and university-wide data, we find evidence of grade inflation in UK higher education from 2009 onwards after controlling for changes in university efficiency in improving degree outcome and factors associated with degree performance. The data employed allow several other sub-themes to be explored. We confirm the findings from previous research that a student’s pre-entry A-level score, region of domicile and previous schooling impact on degree performance. This paper contributes to the relatively thin UK literature that exists on ‘grade inflation’

University rankings: What do they really show?

“…Many of the measures of performance are under the control of the HEI, and there has been concern from senior managers of universities that some measures in league tables are susceptible to 'cheating' behaviour (Rolfe 2003), and suggestion that universities are influencing data in order to raise their rankings (Hazelkorn 2015). Graduation or achievement rates, for example, can be improved by introducing better teaching (a positive effect of rankings) or by lowering standards which leads to 'grade inflation' (Johnes 2004;Popov and Bernhardt 2013;Bachan 2015;Johnes and Soo 2015). There have also been claims that students have been pressured to provide favourable responses to the National Student Survey in the UK in order to boost performance in media rankings (Newman 2008).…”

Analysing Challenges of Teaching Supply Chain Management in Higher Education Institutions

“…Such observation can be found in other countries as well. In the UK, for example, Bachan (2017) confirmed the public speculation of grade inflation in UK higher education. On the other hand, in a study of consumerism in UK HEIs, Bunce et al (2017) noted that students who do not identify themselves as learners have a high probability to develop a consumer-alike orientation, especially if they are self-funded students.…”

Degree outcomes and national calibration: Debating academic standards in UK Geography

“…Entry qualification (Thornes 2012a;Bachan 2017) Age (Richardson & Woodley 2003) Gender (Bondi 1996;Smith 2007) Socio-economic background (Thiele et al 2016) School type (Bachan 2017) and/or geographical location (Singleton 2010;Gibbons & Vignoles 2012) ASSESSORS Assessment practices and standards (Healey 2010) Assessment methods (Knight 2006) Assessment standards (Price 2005;Bloxham 2009;Hudson et al., 2017) Marking criteria / procedures 2016a;Sadler 2014;Bloxham et al 2015) Moderation practices (Sadler 2013;O'Connell et al 2016) Classification mechanisms (Hefce 2015) F I G U R E 3 Explaining the variability of assessor standards in the context of departmental, institutional, and sector-wide attributes and influences (building on Chapman, 1993).…”

“…Our argument is that such assessment practices are logical, feasible, supported by evidence from research in education, and preferable to the more prominent alternative of including a disincentive for "grade inflation" in the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF). 2 Our contention is that disciplinary communities have a role to play alongside individual universities in responding to this challenge (Bachan, 2017;UUK et al, 2018a). The initiatives outlined in this paper demonstrate an appetite for calibration of academic standards within the geography community and practical opportunities to complement the existing External Examiner system.…”