In his Feb. 17th New York Times article, "Student expectations seen as causing grade disputes," Max Roosevelt discusses professors' and students' modern expectations about college grades.
"James Hogge, associate dean of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University , said: 'Students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work. There is a mentality in students that "if I work hard, I deserve a high grade,"' Roosevelt writes.
This sense of "entitlement," as many teachers are calling it, results in students' confusion and dissatisfaction with below average achievement in classes. Where professors judge performance in a class by the quality of the work, students often feel that effort alone is sufficient for an above average grade.
Roosevelt goes on to quote Professor Ellen Greenberger, who claims "that the sense of entitlement could be related to increased parental pressure, competition among peers and family members and a heightened sense of achievement anxiety." These factors, coupled with the decreasing number of jobs and admissions to schools, cause students to search for a formulaic ways to attain good grades rather than immersing themselves in the class material and performing well out of interest and desire to learn.
Some students do not deny their high expectations when it comes to grades. "Sarah Kinn, a junior English major at the University of Vermont, agreed, saying, 'I feel that if I do all of the readings and attend class regularly that I should be able to achieve a grade of at least a B,'" Roosevelt writes. Such an attitude could be taken as a sense of "entitlement" to good grades. It could also be interpreted as a way to stay afloat in an academic environment that has become more competitive and exclusive than ever before.
Both views have merit. First and foremost, the purpose of education and grades in general is to measure in a universal manner the quality of a students' work and their mastery of a particular subject. Simply attending class and completing the reading does not demonstrate a complete understanding of a subject. For general education classes, this is not as important; however, if students approach classes in their major as such and forsake in depth mastery of a subject for fulfillment of a grade requirement, their understanding of their craft and career will suffer. It makes sense that grades be assigned based on test scores and essays. Attendance and homework are merely for learning, whereas writing and testing truly illustrate the level of comprehension a student has achieved.
At the same time, students' struggle to find sure ways to get high grades is not born out of a sense of "entitlement," as many of Roosevelt's professor sources say. In the current academic system, the level of competition is unprecedented. Fewer admission spots are available to students and, even with a degree, even less jobs are available to graduates. In such an environment, it makes sense that students would attempt to find ways to ensure good grades. It is a drive to survive, not a sense of entitlement, that pushes students to succeed at any cost in the modern world of academia.
Roosevelt's article seemed to focus more on the professors' perspectives and makes modern college students appear to be self-righteous grade mongers. This being said, it still holds that merely attending class and completing reading is not a good measure of an understanding of class material. As a result, I contend that professors have every right to disregard the effort a student puts into a class and instead focus on the quality of essays, test scores, presentations, and so on. Most of the time, putting in the effort to succeed results in success in a course anyways. It should be noted, though, that the intense drive to succeed is not merely a result of college students feeling that they necessarily deserve good grades, but is the result of varying socioeconomic conditions that have created the current state of the world, both academic and otherwise.
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