Effort and Merit

Aye.

...the key is that these two statements are very different:

Jason Greenwood, a senior kinesiology major at the University of Maryland echoed that view.

“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”

“If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. “If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher’s mind, then something is wrong.”

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.”

"Putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade" is different than saying "I feel that if I do all the readings and attend class regularly that I should be able to achieve a grade of at least a B." The latter isn't really "entitlement"; it's a description of reality at any major college campus. Most students, in most courses, will get Bs if they attend class, and do all the work. This is as it should be; it's not as if a campus-wide B average is somehow vile and unnatural.

The Greenwood quote is different. Mere effort never merits a high grade; while I appreciate hard work, it has to result in actual achievement. Even if effort did merit high marks, grading "effort" is, in practice, impossible; how am I to know how hard student X worked on his or her paper? College isn't third grade, where direct monitoring of student process is at least conceptually possible. I do appreciate the frustration of students who do a lot of work and receive a bad grade, but it's not a problem for which there's a satisfactory solution.

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