Sample-based bullshit

Standards in general, and in academia in particular, are a keen concern of mine, and I will be writing about them frequently here. This post is about an open letter written by a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Regina to the Head of the Department, a letter which he shared in a publication to which I subscribe.

The letter concerns an email sent to all CS students and faculty at UR on August 30, 2023, in which the following sentence appears – “In an effort to provide timely feedback on student work, some of our courses will be moving to a sample-based marking approach.”

The email goes on to explain what that means – that when a student turns in an assignment or test, not all of it will be marked. The parts to be marked will not be revealed until after the marked work has been returned to the students, and their grade will be determined only by that which is marked. So if a test consists of 6 problems, perhaps only three will be marked and feedback provided; the same three for all students.

The reason given for this is the increase in the size of CS classes, driven in turn by an increase in the number of CS majors, said to be nearly 1000 in the email.

The faculty member wrote his open letter to the Head of his Department (Computer Science) decrying this new grading approach, and explaining why he thought it would lead to a decline in academic standards.

I will first just record here that ‘sample-based marking’ as described, is in itself a reduction in academic standards. When I taught at University my assignments and tests were conceived as a whole, different parts of it designed to test different parts of the material, but also different abilities. Some questions could not be answered well without having the ability to write clearly and concisely about something complex, while other questions were designed to test one’s ability to deal with more formal logical or technical issues. To mark or provide feedback on only some aspects of the work is to ignore some part of what the course is about.

I understand well that the idea behind this is that, because the students don’t know up-front which parts of their work will be marked, they still have an incentive to work hard learning all of it. This does not change the fact they will get no feedback on some of their work, a primary point of marking. But in addition, anyone who knows students knows this will lead to a cottage industry in figuring out which parts of work any given instructor is likely to mark, which is not in any way part of what higher education is supposed to teach students.

This policy is, in the end, a further piece of evidence as to what University administrators’ goal is. Get as many students through to a degree as possible, at as low a cost as possible. So far as I can tell, their political masters in Canada are perfectly in agreement with this goal.

This is why sample-based marking is being implemented, rather than the solution suggested by the CS faculty member who objected to it; hiring more faculty to accommodate the growing number of students. Faculty are expensive. And, note that the letter did not indicate that CS students would be seeing a discount on their tuition bill to accompany this sample-based marking initiative.

Imagine a McDonald’s franchise-holder, or local restauranteur, who found themselves with a (delightful) increase in patronage, and responded by filling only part of all food orders, rather than hiring more workers, while charging for everything ordered.

One final note. The original email laying out how this scheme is envisioned working at UR also says that the parts of any student work that are not marked will none the less have solutions posted for the non-marked parts, or they will be gone over in class so as to provide students with the correct solutions. So, there’s your all-around feedback, eh?

Right. In a university atmosphere in which students feel free – indeed, are encouraged – to argue for higher marks for most any reason they can think up, this will open up a whole new area of student appeals. To wit: “ I got the parts of the exam you did not mark nearly perfect, according to your own solution key, so I deserve much more than the 63 I received, which is based solely on the parts you did mark.”…followed by the ever-popular ‘This isn’t fair.’