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Beyond classification
24 July 2008
The fuss over external examining and standards misses the point - degrees really are no longer what they were, says Kevin Sharpe
Letters lamenting the ever-increasing proportion of first-class degrees and upper seconds and declining standards have become an annual ritual in the academic calendar.
But this year we have seen an unprecedented outpouring of anxiety and protest that has spilled over from scholarly debate to broad public discussion. Both under their names and anonymously, scholars from elite universities as well as those less highly placed have gone to the national press admitting that they and their colleagues have been pressured by their institutions to award higher proportions of top-class degrees so as to secure their universities a higher ranking in league tables.
Along with this, several external examiners - the supposed custodians of standards - have gone public with stories of their recommendations and concerns being ignored, of their being used merely to give spurious external validation to inflated grades ("External examiners under pressure to uphold marks and avoid criticism", Times Higher Education, 26 June).
So much publicity and concern has been generated that a parliamentary select committee has resolved to investigate degree classification and standards, aware that in higher education the half-suspicion of a tainted brand might lead to the collapse of the business (years ago I heard a vice-chancellor say that he could not risk repeating Gerald Ratner's costly blunder by admitting that university degrees were crap).
So has the examining system become corrupted, and is the degree classification system worthless? Would it, as has been widely suggested, be better to replace the first, upper second, lower second (thirds have gone!) system with a transcript of marks, such as is common in the US? I think that the answer to the first is no and that the second looks for a solution to the wrong problem.
It is not that the examining and classification system has failed. The problem is worse: it is that our degrees have profoundly changed and are no longer in any sense a serious test of knowledge, intelligence or critical ability.
If one sets a bar very low and most succeed effortlessly in clearing it, one cannot blame the judges for awarding all the successful jumpers a high mark. For some years, we have been steadily lowering the bar.
Until not many years ago, a degree required that a student attain an overall grasp of a subject and of the skills of a discipline, required the capacity to relate subjects (in history, for example, the development of the state in England and France) and to be able to discuss, in English say, the rise of the novel. The university course was a progress through three years in attaining knowledge, developing understanding and acquiring critical evaluative skills that could be transferred to other fields of inquiry - and indeed to work and life. Now instead what we ask is that students simply stay the distance and perform competently a number of discrete tasks - without any need to relate or connect them.
Part of the problem has been the shift to a modular degree and the reduction (in some universities, removal) of examinations. The demise of final exams and shift to a modular system have changed not just how we assess but what we require for a degree. For without traditional examinations, and with the modular system, students rightly see little need to think outside the particular exercise or to relate this problem or subject to one they tackled last semester. They perform an isolated task and are rewarded for performing it. Add these satisfactorily performed tasks together and - hey, presto - everyone half-able gets an upper second and the reasonably good a first.
Many undergraduates are very intelligent, and the best reach very high standards of intellectual attainment. But that is not because our system any longer requires or even encourages it. Indeed, what may be our greatest failing is that we do not push the able to fulfil their greatest potential because we do not sufficiently differentially reward it in a system that accords less to highly developed critical thinking, originality and flair. Moreover, even the less talented are deprived of the experience of improving and developing, of beginning to see, as they revised - that is looked and thought again - how different areas of a subject threw light on each other as well as contributed to a whole discipline and understanding.
If the response to the laments about classifications leads only to a shift to transcripts, it will not settle public concern about standards nor address the larger - and much more serious - problem of our degrees, which, under the same name, no longer constitute anything like the same thing and may even be no longer fit for purpose.
Kevin Sharpe is professor of Renaissance studies, Queen Mary, University of London.
Readers' comments
As I said in a comment to the piece by Geoffrey Alderman on the same topic last week, I'd go the whole hog and make the first degree dependent solely on national exams, with the markers knowing no more than that they were not marking their own students' papers. If you wanted a model, you could follow the style of the French CAPES or Agrégation exams (though without following the basis for success in them).
I agree, standards have dropped, the country is going to the dogs. Things just are not the same any more. When I went to University it was a proper degree. In the old days... blah blah blah...
Woo hoo, I will achieve a degree after attending uni for three years - one day a week (part time course) BA Hons
Professor Sharpe is simply recounting anecdotes. What is his evidence for his assertion that degrees of UK universities 'are no longer in any sense a serious test of knowledge, intelligence or critical ability'? Indeed, what is his evidence for asserting that 'Until not many years ago, a degree required that a student attain an overall grasp of a subject and of the skills of a discipline'? <p>Is Professor Sharpe seriously suggesting that the bridges designed by this year's engineering graduate will fall down, that the profit and loss statements certified by this year's accounting graduates wont balance, or that this year's nursing graduates wont be able to administer the correct medicine? <p>The fundamental point about the standards debate is that there is no evidence. There is no evidence to say that standards have risen, fallen or been maintained. Indeed, I doubt that there is even agreement on what would count as evidence to test these propositions.
Whilst Professor Sharpe makes some valid points about current trends and directions, and the pressures on institutions to raise degree classifications, others have noted the whole league table motivation behind good classifications. However, if degree classifications go the way of A'levels and ultimately lack real credibility, does it actually matter? <p>Students typically use A'level equivalents to get into university, and it is arguable that they then need 'good' degrees to compete in the job market. There is evidence some enlightened employers are already involving lower classification applicants in selection processes given classifications are not good indicators, and using varying and more targeted aptitude and psychometric testing to pick out preferred candidates. <p>So what do degree classifications actually tell us? Which university they went to, and how hard they worked relative to their peers at that university. Perhaps. Standards comparisons between institutions could only effectively work with a national system to enforce it (i.e. not reliant on peer evaluation and external examiners) thus potentially removing all the natural and desired variability in the student experience between institutions, and the unique learning opportunities that go with it. Even if we changed the multitude of league table methodologies to ignore classifications, do we make the students any better? Just look at what is happening to A'levels ...
There's no deny that standard has dropped. Especially lots of courses design deliberately discourage exam and only coursework assessment. In the past the main assessments was several courseworks, in addition to 3-hour exams, now it's only one or two coursework which is difficult to fail (unless they spent less than half an hour on it).
I've had the unique oppourtunity to attend an american university for my undergraduate degrees and an Irish university (trinity) for my masters (between the years of 2000 and 2006). I must agree that the observances of the author are quite true in regards to students only working to grasp isolated areas of their course when necessary to achieve adequate exam marks. I find this is even more of a problem in the States. I still think the British/Irish way of examining students with unbiased (or hopefully so) external examiners is an advantage in that it keeps the universities honest. There is no system of cross-checking students' course work like this in America. <p>One fatal flaw of the American grading system is that a perfect 100% A is obtained in nearly every exam by at least one or a few students. The social ramifications of this are contributing to an overinflated ego in young american students. To them, 100% A is perfection and they therefore think that their grasp on the topic is perfect, which makes them as a person, perfect. This belief bleeds into other areas of the person's life and arrogance, which is often unfounded, is the result. Now what's happening is that these "perfect" 4.0 american students throw a hissy-fit when they aren't accepted for a job because their 4.0 "should have PROVED" that they are the perfect candidate despite not having any real job experience. You see where I'm going with this. <p>The answer to these problems is no longer telling young people that a college degree guarantees them a good job, or anything really (at least that's the perception of what a college degree entitles one in america). If young students realize that college is primarily for pure self-betterment and the thirst to understand advanced topics of study, you'll see the value of degrees rising and the number of students attending university falling. This fall in attendance is good though because it proves that only those truly interested in these studies will attend. Anyone else who just wants a "job" after partying for 3-4 years can go swing a hammer.