TA Refuses to Give Out 100%s on Lab Reports: Analyzing Pros & Cons

  • Thread starter Jack21222
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In summary, this teaching assistant believes that giving out grades that are not 100% is a way to motivate students to improve. He feels that if a student meets all the criteria for a perfect grade, then they should be given a 100%. He also feels that if a student gets a 98% or a 99%, they have a better chance of trying to figure out ways to improve.
  • #1
Jack21222
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So this semester as a teaching assistant, I've decided that I simply do not give out 100%s on lab reports. On quizzes and homeworks I'm happy to give out perfect scores, but on something like a lab report, I have determined that nobody is perfect and there is always something that could have been done better.

As a concrete example, I could find nothing obvious wrong with a lab report last week, but his conclusion was a bit too long-winded and some of the stuff presented there should have been in the analysis, so I took off a point. He got a 99%.

I feel that if somebody received a 100%, they stop trying to improve and perhaps get complacent. If somebody gets a 99%, they have a better chance at trying to figure out ways to improve. Meanwhile, the 1 percentage point difference on their lab grade is exceedingly unlikely to affect their letter grade, particularly if they're good enough to be getting 99%s on a regular basis.

Does anybody have any thoughts about this? I can see the argument that perhaps it's unfair to take a point off from one person's paper that I don't take off from a paper that got, say, an 80%. But in my mind, the person who got an 80% has enough major stuff to work on without getting nitpicky.

Are there any other arguments against this? Will this actual reduce the morale of higher-achieving students? Is anybody aware of any physics education research about this tactic? Has anybody used this to good effect?
 
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  • #2
Many teachers of mine never gave out a 100% for exactly the same reason, but I never really liked the system.

I feel that beforehand, you should set some criteria about what you want to see on an assignment and then you should grade according to that criteria. If somebody meets all criteria, then I don't see a reason not to give him 100%.

If I grade papers that students need to write, then I always keep in mind the eventual goal: the students are learning this stuff in order to write good research papers. If I read the paper of a student and if I think that it is the quality of a good research paper, then I feel that the student has met the goal and he should get a 100%.

Besides, getting a 100% as a student can be an extremely good motivator. I don't think students are likely to start slacking off or stop improving. On the contrary, I think that they want to keep repeating their success and they will put in even more time in writing a good assignment (at least, that is what I would do).

I'm not saying a 100% should be easy to get, on the contrary: a student would have to work very hard to get it. But I disagree that it should be impossible.
 
  • #3
You should have clear guidelines about what makes for a good lab report, and the grades should correspond to how well the students adhered to those guidelines. Docking someone marks because they could conceivably have done better maybe somehow doesn't seem like a good practice.
 
  • #4
micromass said:
I feel that beforehand, you should set some criteria about what you want to see on an assignment and then you should grade according to that criteria. If somebody meets all criteria, then I don't see a reason not to give him 100%.

Thing is, so many of the criteria are subjective. There is a grading breakdown in the beginning of the lab manual which I have to follow, but it has things like this:

Each experiment will get a numerical grade based on your prelab quiz, the quality of your data, the analysis of the data (including the error), and the neatness and organization of the lab report.

Things like "neatness and organization" of the lab report is extremely subjective. When I'm grading, I have a list of key points I look for in every lab report, each worth between 3-6 points. If somebody loses points on a few of them, I don't subject the paper to any more scrutiny, I just give them their 88% or whatever they earned and move on. Maybe I should have taken off a couple more points because in addition to being wrong or incomplete, their paper wasn't quite organized properly. But, it's more important for them to get the major points right and it's less time-consuming for me.

On the other hand, if a paper survives my "first pass" where I am specifically looking for my list of key points, I'll re-read it to make sure I haven't missed anything. If it survives the second pass, I give it a 3rd read to find something they could do better next time, and that's when they end up with a 99%. I'm sure at some point, if everything really was perfect, I'd give up and give a 100%.

So I guess the way I grade, I make it really difficult to get a very poor grade. As long as they cover most the main points adequately, they get a high grade. The average grade I gave this semester was 86%. Out of the 160 papers graded, I've only given a 99% 3 times, and on one of them the point was taken off on a prelab question that was wrong. In reality, I should probably be harder on those people getting in the low 80s, because they're doing a lot of things I could nitpick for points (weak introductions and conclusions, mainly), but I want them to focus on actually doing the analysis properly.

So, it isn't a situation that happens often, but I am still interested in hearing more peoples' opinions.

For me, I didn't mind getting nitpicked for points because I saw it as a motivator. If I got a 100% on something, I'd pat myself on the back and move on. If I got anything less, I'd try to learn something. I guess everybody's different.
 
  • #5
What students need (but may not want) is proper constructive feedback other than a grade.
 
  • #6
I have graded 6 labs (so 108 lab reports) this quarter so far and given out two 100%'s. They were not perfect but they were exceptional by the standards of a freshman course so I feel comfortable with giving a perfect score.
 
  • #7
Consistency of grading was very important to me as a student. If I'm docked a point for something, then I expect every other student to be held to the same standard. Of course I would never ask that other student's grades be lowered for any reason, but if I found out that I was being penalized for something that other students weren't being penalized for (even if my overall grade was higher), then I would take issue with that.

I also agree that perfect scores (for students who deserve them) are motivators for continued hard work, not motivation to suddenly become complacent.
 
  • #8
If you never give 100%, students cannot improve compared to a 99%-grade, at least in your grading system. Where is the difference to 100%-scores then?
In addition, every grade has some (very fine) internal structure - there might be a "good 99%" and a "bad 99%" (which is very similar to the former one). So where is the problem with a "bad 100%", which is better than a "good 99%", but not perfect?
 
  • #9
IMO, grades are a measuring device to determine how well a student has learned the material. If any student gets a 100 then your assignment is too easy and it was not a good measurement since the quantity measured exceeded the range of the measurement instrument. Similarly, an average score should be about 50.

This may be more appropriate for tests than for homework.
 
  • #10
Jack21222 said:
I feel that if somebody received a 100%, they stop trying to improve and perhaps get complacent. If somebody gets a 99%, they have a better chance at trying to figure out ways to improve. Meanwhile, the 1 percentage point difference on their lab grade is exceedingly unlikely to affect their letter grade, particularly if they're good enough to be getting 99%s on a regular basis.
I find this attitude ridiculous and patronizing. You are basing your grade on how you 'feel' a student would react to that grade (without any real proof for your feeling) rather than on the quality of the student's work. I despise instructors who carry that type of attitude.
 
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  • #11
When I was a student doing lab reports (and I feel MOST students think this way), anything greater than a 95% was pretty much the same thing. No one ever feels challenged to do better for that extra meaningless 1%. We would always just call it nit-picking and feel that the TA is just being a jerk instead of being motivated to get that extra 1%.

I had a professor who went a bit more extreme in a way that was far more effective. He wouldn't give 99%s or even 95%s. You had to go above and beyond what is normally expected out of an undergrad at the level of that class in order to even get an A on a lab. When your actual grade can be affected, THEN you see students get serious about perfecting a lab report. Of course, you need to be willing to give out the >95%s or whatever as well otherwise they will assume that you just don't want to give out the best scores and that it's meaningless to even try to get an A/A+.

Remember, there certainly are students who will strive for perfection, but all students are under time constraints and any bright enough student will realize that the extra work for the extra 1% is not going to be worth the time especially when they realize that they can't actually get that extra 1% anyways (and they figure this out very quickly).
 
  • #12
EricVT said:
Consistency of grading was very important to me as a student. If I'm docked a point for something, then I expect every other student to be held to the same standard. Of course I would never ask that other student's grades be lowered for any reason, but if I found out that I was being penalized for something that other students weren't being penalized for (even if my overall grade was higher), then I would take issue with that.

The problem with this is that your two statements are contradictory. You wouldn't want me to lower everybody else's grade, but you also want them to be penalized for the same mistakes. You can't have both.

If I've killed somebody's grade over not answering the questions properly, and they're getting a 60%, it would be cruel to continue to beat them down by nickle and diming their grade with the small things, like not putting enough detail or background information into their introduction.

If you get a good grade on an assignment, it's petty to "take issue with" the teacher giving out "pity points" to somebody who is struggling.

I must say, though, this thread has made me reconsider giving out 100%s. Perhaps I can still comment on papers on things that need to be improved without taking points off for it.

I find this attitude ridiculous and patronizing. You are basing your grade on how you 'feel' a student would react to that grade (without any real proof for your feeling) rather than on the quality of the student's work. I despise instructors who carry that type of attitude.

And you're getting very angry over 1 percentage point on rare assignments for students who are getting an A no matter what. The feeling is mutual.
 
  • #13
Jack21222 said:
And you're getting very angry over 1 percentage point on rare assignments for students who are getting an A no matter what. The feeling is mutual.
I am not angry about it, but I do have strong feelings on this topic. I have been subjected to this type of grading system many times in the past.

Jack21222 said:
If I've killed somebody's grade over not answering the questions properly, and they're getting a 60%, it would be cruel to continue to beat them down by nickle and diming their grade with the small things, like not putting enough detail or background information into their introduction.

If you get a good grade on an assignment, it's petty to "take issue with" the teacher giving out "pity points" to somebody who is struggling.
I find it ironic that you feel it is petty for others to take issue with pity points you might have given to poor students, but not petty for you to take away 'perfection' points from exceptional students.
Jack21222 said:
I must say, though, this thread has made me reconsider giving out 100%s. Perhaps I can still comment on papers on things that need to be improved without taking points off for it.
This would be my preferred method. The internet works!
 
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  • #14
So, I used to be a TA for the most subjective class in the world, a writing class!

While I agree that, in theory, a person can always present information better, I think it's asinine to form a grading policy on this. In the real world, which I hope is something we are preparing students for, there is balance between perfection and time. No one wants to put in the extra work, if in the end, the person reading the material will just nit pick it, and to the same extent, you can't expect a person to not be able to do something better.

My approach when it came to grading was simple. On the first assignment, I laid out my grading criteria. If they met the criteria, but I found errors or had tips for them, I would make note of it in my massive journal, and leave them a note on their paper explaining what I expect them to improve upon. If they failed to improve, then I would mark off on the assignment, but if they did improve on it, I see no reason why I should still punish them.
 
  • #15
Jack21222 said:
The problem with this is that your two statements are contradictory. You wouldn't want me to lower everybody else's grade, but you also want them to be penalized for the same mistakes. You can't have both.

If I've killed somebody's grade over not answering the questions properly, and they're getting a 60%, it would be cruel to continue to beat them down by nickle and diming their grade with the small things, like not putting enough detail or background information into their introduction.

If you get a good grade on an assignment, it's petty to "take issue with" the teacher giving out "pity points" to somebody who is struggling.

What I meant is that I wouldn't ask that another student's grade be lowered retroactively once I found out about a grading inconsistency, there is no contradiction. And I don't consider it petty in the least to expect consistent grading from an instructor.
 
  • #16
EricVT said:
And I don't consider it petty in the least to expect consistent grading from an instructor.

Let me give you a concrete example, and let's see if you still have this sentiment.

A student has a two sentence introduction, where they give only the most barebones information about what is to be accomplished in this experiment. This introduction should really get about a 6/10. The rest of the paper is riddled with errors and is in many places incomplete. The student would get a 68%. Well, in comparison with the rest of the paper, the introduction isn't that bad, so I give an 8/10 on the intro, and the student gets a 70%. A second student turns in a paper with a very similar introduction, but the rest of the paper is nearly flawless. I give that student 6/10 on the intro for a 96% total, because that's what the intro deserves.

Your desire for "consistent grading" is the difference between the weaker student getting a C- and a D+.

What you fail to realize is that grading is inherently subjective. Lab reports aren't multiple choice; you can't just flatly says "this is right" and "this is wrong" and apply it evenly for every student. Specifically, in the case of these lab reports, "neatness and organization" are right there in the rubric. Well, organization is a very subjective thing. If you put information which should be in the introduction in the conclusion instead, to me, that's disorganized. However, if I spent all my time tracking down every bit of information that should be in another section and docking points for it, I'd triple my grading time and I'd only hurt the students who were on the borderline anyway. However, in a perfect world, such disorganization SHOULD have points taken off, so I see nothing wrong for docking points where it's warranted even if I haven't docked points from the weaker students who made the same mistakes. Yes, it's inconsistent, but it only raises the grades of the weaker students, it does not lower the grades of the stronger ones.
 
  • #17
You've just said that you would give 80% credit for a 60% quality answer to one student and 60% credit for an identical 60% quality answer to another student, arbitrarily choosing to give the better student less points because they did so well on the rest of the paper.

I just hope you understand how the higher scoring student might not appreciate being held to a different grading standard than others.
 
  • #18
EricVT said:
I just hope you understand how the higher scoring student might not appreciate being held to a different grading standard than others.

No, I do not.
 
  • #19
I think you best talk to the professor whose class you are TA'ing for and get his/her advice. What you describe is, at best, more subjective than it needs to be.

It sounds a lot like you decide based on the overall quality what the final score should be, and then go trough the individual parts to try and make the numbers work out. As you point out, this means that two students who do exactly as well as each other on that part can end up with vastly different scores on it.

The professor - the person ultimately responsible for your grading - may have something to say about that.
 
  • #20
Edit: Ugh, I didn't realize this thread was 3 months dead until I typed all this out. Oh well, for posterity I guess...

I'm not an undergrad anymore, but honestly, if I got a 99% I would not be motivated to work harder for just 1 more point because I would assume either

A: The instructor is just one of those people that think they know me more than I know myself, and I'm never going to get a 100% no matter how hard I try anyway. If I can't get a 100, why bother? I'd probably think this I feel I did everything perfectly and was expecting 100.

or B: If I get a legit 99, it's not really worth the effort to try and get one more point when it won't effect my grade at all. I should work on something else. I'd probably feel this way if I was expecting an A, but not sure what kind of A.

But if I got a 100%, I would try hard to try to get the 100% again since if I don't, that means I'm slipping.

Your tactic would have an opposite effect on me. Not posting just to refute your hypothesis on teaching, this is seriously how I thought and TBH I think I'll feel the same in grad school. There are those kids that cry when they get a B, but I'm not one of them. If you want me to try 120%... find a way to slip a C grade on me, if you're going to base your grades on how motivated you want students to be. I got a low C on my first QM test... then straight ~100s on everything after that. I spent my whole life cruising through grade school and gen ed classes in college without really being pushed, so I don't even try unless it can actually effect my grade. I don't know what this says about my attitude, but it's the truth.
 
  • #21
Seriously, this is the most annoying thing. I always thought teachers did this, but this thread concludes that they really do. The worst thing is, is when it's a TA!
 
  • #22
Jack21222 said:
No, I do not.

And I'll reply to this too. It's because you're basing grades off effort rather than competency and achievement. Do you think the nobel committee should award prizes based on how hard someone worked on a project? "Well, Prof. Johnson just discovered time travel in only a year, but Prof. Jones has been working so hard on his perpetual motion device for the last 50 years, so let's give it to him instead."

"Chair A is clearly higher quality materials and has better workmanship than Chair B, but they should be priced the same since Chair A was made in 12 hours by machine in a factory, while B took 2 days by hand in a shop class."

I might be exaggerating, but you get the point.
 
  • #23
Be glad that you are not in sports. 110% is the minimum.
 
  • #24
Jack21222 said:
So this semester as a teaching assistant, I've decided that I simply do not give out 100%s on lab reports. On quizzes and homeworks I'm happy to give out perfect scores, but on something like a lab report, I have determined that nobody is perfect and there is always something that could have been done better.

As a concrete example, I could find nothing obvious wrong with a lab report last week, but his conclusion was a bit too long-winded and some of the stuff presented there should have been in the analysis, so I took off a point. He got a 99%.

I feel that if somebody received a 100%, they stop trying to improve and perhaps get complacent. If somebody gets a 99%, they have a better chance at trying to figure out ways to improve. Meanwhile, the 1 percentage point difference on their lab grade is exceedingly unlikely to affect their letter grade, particularly if they're good enough to be getting 99%s on a regular basis.

Does anybody have any thoughts about this? I can see the argument that perhaps it's unfair to take a point off from one person's paper that I don't take off from a paper that got, say, an 80%. But in my mind, the person who got an 80% has enough major stuff to work on without getting nitpicky.

Are there any other arguments against this? Will this actual reduce the morale of higher-achieving students? Is anybody aware of any physics education research about this tactic? Has anybody used this to good effect?

Many people are attracted to science classes because of the concrete nature of the investigations as compared to the subjective nature of other disciplines. You're undermining this by inserting your "feeling" that no lab report deserves a 100% and are willing to move the goal posts if necessary to achieve that. Grading lab reports isn't about YOU and your musings on perfection, it's about whether the students are learning what they're supposed to be learning. Take yourself out of the equation, give them some legitimate guidelines and if they get them all, they should get 100%. This is, honestly, one of the stranger things I've ever heard from a TA.
 
  • #25
Jack21222 said:
<snip>Does anybody have any thoughts about this? <snip>

I applaud the sentiment, and based on my experience agree that lab reports are generally atrocious. OTOH, you *must* apply uniform standards to all students. Definitely 'set the bar high', but also clearly communicate your expectations and apply uniform standards.
 
  • #26
Jack21222 said:
Let me give you a concrete example, and let's see if you still have this sentiment.

A student has a two sentence introduction, where they give only the most barebones information about what is to be accomplished in this experiment. This introduction should really get about a 6/10. The rest of the paper is riddled with errors and is in many places incomplete. The student would get a 68%. Well, in comparison with the rest of the paper, the introduction isn't that bad, so I give an 8/10 on the intro, and the student gets a 70%.
This doesn't seem reasonable to me. If the introduction is worth 6 out of 10 points, then that is what it should get. The comparison should made against whatever intro would get all 10 points.
Jack21222 said:
A second student turns in a paper with a very similar introduction, but the rest of the paper is nearly flawless. I give that student 6/10 on the intro for a 96% total, because that's what the intro deserves.
I don't have any problems with that.
Jack21222 said:
Your desire for "consistent grading" is the difference between the weaker student getting a C- and a D+.

What you fail to realize is that grading is inherently subjective.
But it can be made less so if you have a clear idea in advance as to what constitutes an "ideal" introduction (or whatever), and assign or deduct points on that basis. Giving two students different grades for essentially the same work (using your introduction example) is the height of unfairness, IMO.
Jack21222 said:
Lab reports aren't multiple choice; you can't just flatly says "this is right" and "this is wrong" and apply it evenly for every student. Specifically, in the case of these lab reports, "neatness and organization" are right there in the rubric. Well, organization is a very subjective thing. If you put information which should be in the introduction in the conclusion instead, to me, that's disorganized. However, if I spent all my time tracking down every bit of information that should be in another section and docking points for it, I'd triple my grading time and I'd only hurt the students who were on the borderline anyway. However, in a perfect world, such disorganization SHOULD have points taken off, so I see nothing wrong for docking points where it's warranted even if I haven't docked points from the weaker students who made the same mistakes. Yes, it's inconsistent, but it only raises the grades of the weaker students, it does not lower the grades of the stronger ones.

One of the most important things you can do when you are grading papers is to be consistent in your marking. Students compare notes with each other, and can usually discern whether two papers are similar in quality.
 
  • #27
Jack21222 said:
So this semester as a teaching assistant, I've decided that I simply do not give out 100%s on lab reports. On quizzes and homeworks I'm happy to give out perfect scores, but on something like a lab report, I have determined that nobody is perfect and there is always something that could have been done better.

As a concrete example, I could find nothing obvious wrong with a lab report last week, but his conclusion was a bit too long-winded and some of the stuff presented there should have been in the analysis, so I took off a point. He got a 99%.

I feel that if somebody received a 100%, they stop trying to improve and perhaps get complacent. If somebody gets a 99%, they have a better chance at trying to figure out ways to improve. Meanwhile, the 1 percentage point difference on their lab grade is exceedingly unlikely to affect their letter grade, particularly if they're good enough to be getting 99%s on a regular basis.

Does anybody have any thoughts about this? I can see the argument that perhaps it's unfair to take a point off from one person's paper that I don't take off from a paper that got, say, an 80%. But in my mind, the person who got an 80% has enough major stuff to work on without getting nitpicky.

Are there any other arguments against this? Will this actual reduce the morale of higher-achieving students? Is anybody aware of any physics education research about this tactic? Has anybody used this to good effect?

This is an absolutely asinine grading policy. Nobody is perfect, so nobody deserves 100%. And yet, who are you, the one subjectively judging these lab reports? Are you perfect? You're just some TA grading lab reports. The difference between a "perfect" Introduction and a "stellar, but less than perfect" Introduction is just your opinion, man.

In fact, there is no perfect lab report, because the qualities on which one might judge such a thing are not one-dimensional. What you think is an "improvement" is really just a "closer to how I would have done it", but it is not as though your own writing style is some universal, accepted, and expected standard. And you could be wrong! I hope you're not taking off points for grammatical mistakes, because almost certainly your understanding of correct grammar is wrong somewhere (as it is with most people, especially in sciences).

To account for the fact that you grade imperfectly, you should create a standard and adhere to it. And allow students who meet the standard to earn 100%. Even if the standard does not capture your personal opinion of perfection. Because the class is not about your personal opinion of perfection. It's about performing experiments and clearly documenting them.
 
  • #28
Ben Niehoff said:
This is an absolutely asinine grading policy. Nobody is perfect, so nobody deserves 100%. And yet, who are you, the one subjectively judging these lab reports? Are you perfect? You're just some TA grading lab reports. The difference between a "perfect" Introduction and a "stellar, but less than perfect" Introduction is just your opinion, man.

In fact, there is no perfect lab report, because the qualities on which one might judge such a thing are not one-dimensional. What you think is an "improvement" is really just a "closer to how I would have done it", but it is not as though your own writing style is some universal, accepted, and expected standard. And you could be wrong! I hope you're not taking off points for grammatical mistakes, because almost certainly your understanding of correct grammar is wrong somewhere (as it is with most people, especially in sciences).

To account for the fact that you grade imperfectly, you should create a standard and adhere to it. And allow students who meet the standard to earn 100%. Even if the standard does not capture your personal opinion of perfection. Because the class is not about your personal opinion of perfection. It's about performing experiments and clearly documenting them.
There is no such thing as a perfect grader so you should give the students at least the slack they are giving you and give them 100% if they showed exceptional work albeit not perfect work.
 
  • #29
What this policy really does is change the scale range to 0-99 instead of the usual 0-100. I think that's fine IF the students are aware of this. If they are led to believe it is still a 0-100 scale, then there is some level of dishonesty at play. Striving for that final point is a futile effort. At the very least the students should be informed about the actual scale range.

Get rid of the notion that a maximum score must indicate a perfect paper. It does NOT have to do that. It's just an indication that a student is well above the ability of the others in the class.
 
  • #30
Redbelly98 said:
What this policy really does is change the scale range to 0-99 instead of the usual 0-100. I think that's fine IF the students are aware of this. If they are led to believe it is still a 0-100 scale, then there is some level of dishonesty at play. Striving for that final point is a futile effort. At the very least the students should be informed about the actual scale range.

Get rid of the notion that a maximum score must indicate a perfect paper. It does NOT have to do that. It's just an indication that a student is well above the ability of the others in the class.
This isn't true if there are other TA's for the course in which case there is a 0-99 scale in his section but a 0-100 in another section
 
  • #31
Einstein Mcfly said:
Many people are attracted to science classes because of the concrete nature of the investigations as compared to the subjective nature of other disciplines.

HAHAHAHA! Well if that's the case, then best we crush that misconception as quickly as possible, and lab class is usually the place to introduce them to the real world.

As for the OP, I wouldn't stress about this issue, in the end it makes little difference. I give out 100's when marking not because I think the report it perfect, but because I don't often have the time to properly write down a justification of whatever I am still nitpicking at that point.

As for your policy of being harder on the good students, I do this too, but the motivation from my perspective is this:

1. Docking marks requires giving the students written feedback to justify it.
2. This takes time.
3. I have already burned enough time describing the big issues to be fixed to the weaker students. I am not going to waste more time telling them the minutia that need to be fixed; indeed this will distract attention from the bigger issues they should focus on and they probably won't read it anyway.
4. Strong students are more likely to actually pay attention to feedback about finer details, thus I in turn am more willing to give them this portion of my time.

In the end the bias is small so it is pretty unimportant. It may be perfectly "fair", but everybody gets the feedback most relevant to them. It is not worth the effort required to ensure that the marking meets some magic standard of consistency across every detail. So long as the overall final marks are a good reflection of the overall standard I think that is fine.
 
  • #32
Jack21222 said:
<snip>
The people in that house need to take the trash out. It's a mess in there.

If he got under it, he could probably touch the goal. I doubt he would be able to get it down though. It is wrong to tape that just out of his reach. I'm glad a friend understood what was happening and handled the situation appropriately.
ht_duct_tape_kid_2_101004_main.jpg


I assume some students are trying to score 100s on their labs. Have you been able to explain to them how to do so?
 
  • #33
kurros said:
HAHAHAHA! Well if that's the case, then best we crush that misconception as quickly as possible, and lab class is usually the place to introduce them to the real world.

Err, I'm pretty sure that if a bunch of students are carrying out an experiment to find the Rydberg constant or something then we should probably expect them to be able to come up with a number that matches the one in the textbook (give or take the uncertainty in their experiment) or suggest a pretty good reason why their result is different. Sure, lab results are messy. But one of the first things we teach is that in science we should try to quantify the uncertainties in our results. It's not all just a subjective free for all!
 
  • #34
MalachiK said:
Err, I'm pretty sure that if a bunch of students are carrying out an experiment to find the Rydberg constant or something then we should probably expect them to be able to come up with a number that matches the one in the textbook (give or take the uncertainty in their experiment) or suggest a pretty good reason why their result is different. Sure, lab results are messy. But one of the first things we teach is that in science we should try to quantify the uncertainties in our results. It's not all just a subjective free for all!

If you accept in advance that you understand perfectly well all the theory behind the experiment you are trying to do (and if indeed this is correct...) then sure you can make people go through this mechanical exercise of checking they can get the right numbers out, and yes this is what we make junior undergraduates to do get a feeling for how to operate in the lab.

But this is not what science is about or how it works. One does experiments that are supposed to push the boundaries of what accepted theory describes, and when discrepancies arise and they need to be understood then things can become incredibly subjective. We usually expose senior undergraduates to this by giving them longer, more complicated/realistic experiments to do, and giving them only a simplified theoretical model of what is expected to happen (partially because the full theory is a bit beyond them still). All kinds of weird discrepancies can show up and it is good for them to have to really think about the various explanations for what is going on. Things are rarely black and white.

But no, I didn't mean to imply it was a "free-for-all". But neither are the humanities total free-for-alls. In so much as there are various approaches to the philosophy of science there are also constraints on (say, for example) theories of meta-ethics or political thought.
 
  • #35
you sound like a crooked gymnastics judge from a few decades ago. you don't determine your grade standards as you grade, but before giving the test. be honest; define your standards and give grades according to how students meet them. otherwise you are like a home base referee who brags about "my strike zone".
 
<h2>1. Why do some TAs refuse to give out 100% on lab reports?</h2><p>Some TAs may refuse to give out 100% on lab reports because they believe that perfection is unattainable and that there is always room for improvement. They may also believe that giving out perfect scores does not accurately reflect a student's understanding of the material.</p><h2>2. What are the benefits of not giving out 100% on lab reports?</h2><p>Not giving out 100% on lab reports encourages students to strive for continuous improvement and to critically evaluate their work. It also allows for a more accurate representation of a student's understanding and effort put into the assignment.</p><h2>3. Are there any drawbacks to not giving out 100% on lab reports?</h2><p>One potential drawback of not giving out 100% on lab reports is that it may discourage students who are used to receiving perfect scores. It may also lead to a competitive and stressful environment where students are solely focused on achieving the highest grade rather than learning and understanding the material.</p><h2>4. How can students address this issue with their TA?</h2><p>Students can address this issue with their TA by respectfully discussing their concerns and asking for specific feedback on how they can improve their lab reports. They can also ask for clarification on the grading criteria and how the TA determines the scores.</p><h2>5. Is it fair for TAs to refuse to give out 100% on lab reports?</h2><p>This is a subjective question and opinions may vary. Some may argue that it is fair as it encourages students to strive for improvement and accurately reflects their understanding of the material. Others may argue that it is unfair as students who have put in a lot of effort and have produced exceptional work may not receive the recognition they deserve.</p>

1. Why do some TAs refuse to give out 100% on lab reports?

Some TAs may refuse to give out 100% on lab reports because they believe that perfection is unattainable and that there is always room for improvement. They may also believe that giving out perfect scores does not accurately reflect a student's understanding of the material.

2. What are the benefits of not giving out 100% on lab reports?

Not giving out 100% on lab reports encourages students to strive for continuous improvement and to critically evaluate their work. It also allows for a more accurate representation of a student's understanding and effort put into the assignment.

3. Are there any drawbacks to not giving out 100% on lab reports?

One potential drawback of not giving out 100% on lab reports is that it may discourage students who are used to receiving perfect scores. It may also lead to a competitive and stressful environment where students are solely focused on achieving the highest grade rather than learning and understanding the material.

4. How can students address this issue with their TA?

Students can address this issue with their TA by respectfully discussing their concerns and asking for specific feedback on how they can improve their lab reports. They can also ask for clarification on the grading criteria and how the TA determines the scores.

5. Is it fair for TAs to refuse to give out 100% on lab reports?

This is a subjective question and opinions may vary. Some may argue that it is fair as it encourages students to strive for improvement and accurately reflects their understanding of the material. Others may argue that it is unfair as students who have put in a lot of effort and have produced exceptional work may not receive the recognition they deserve.

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