EV

Evaluation at the University As‘a Step in the Learning Process, Yes!

As a Method Of Coercing and Culling Students, No!

by Don M. Cregier

Department of History University of Prince Edward Island

Copyright Don M. Cregier, 1973

Conventional systems of ev- aluation and grading at the uriversity

university increasingly are under attack by student and faculty critics. After con— siderable soul—searching during the past several years, in the process of which I jettisoned some notions about evaluation once firmly taken.for grant- ed, I have evolved three hypotheses.

My first hypothesis is that evaluation by sOme ‘qualified person other than the learner himself is a useful, but probably not essential, stage in the learning process, pro— vided it is private, in— formal, non-competitive, non-coercive, non-punit- ive, and non-threatening to the learner's personal- ity. However, I believe that for some people self-eval- uation by someone else.

My second hypothesis is that present systems of university evaluation gen— erally in use, involving numerical and letter grades, grade point indexes, class ranks, and similar invidi— ous distinctions: grades derived from mandatory ex— aminations, quizzes, re- search papers and essays, and other criteria arbit- rarily imposed upon stu— dents by university rules and professorial whims: grades permanently recor- ded in bureaucratic files open to public inspection, not only do not contribute to the educational process, but weaken, debase, and discredit it. ‘

My third hypothesis is that the existing system of university evaluation and grading, as well as ‘ the sifting and grading process in the lower schools.upon which it builds, is not primarily intended to serve an ed— ucational purpose but rather is aimed chiefly at, in the words of social anthropologist David Ries- man, "servicing the status hierarchy and providing graded access to 'achieve- ment' and power in the soc— ial system." Schools, coll— eges, and universities have become the agencies in mod- ern technocratic society through which persons are selected for occupational'» roles and their life chances

‘Ere‘largely determined.’ I shall elaborate on these three hypotheses in reverse order- , Defenders of the tradition: al systems of higher educat- ion in North America and Europe,’in which formal evh aluation and punitive grad- ing constitutes an integral part, are naturally reluct— ant to concede that the edi- cational role of universities may to‘agconsiderable degree he an elaborate Charade to disguise more controversial, functions. Although univer— sity—sponsored research \into,this subject has under- .standably been sparse, there

‘have been numerous social

critics during'the past half century who have endorsed- this hypothesis and there is now a growing body of empir— ical evidence to support it, some of it accumulated by New Left sociologists and anthropologists, some by more conventional investig- ators. '

This body of evidence and commentary supports the common sense proposition,' m- to which almost all of us unreflectingly subscribe, that economic and social

Vsuccess and reWards in modern technocratic society are heavily dependent upon the formal credentials of higher education. To quote one behavioral scientist, Patricia S. West, "a col-- lege degree has become sink ply a badge of.eligibility for the Twentieth Century

‘ white collar world.?

This statement expresses .a truism and greatly over- simplifies the reality. It is not merely the univer- sity degree itself but

the institution granting it one's rank among those re— ceiving it that pretty mud1 determine the socio—econ- omic track one sets out upon after graduation and the probable hierarchical level one will reach at the _end of this path. we do not need behavioral scientists to tell us that in Canada and the United States some universities have greater repute than others and that in the case of less prest— igious institutions, most of the graduates have to be content with middle rank ing positions, or lower, in the professional, manager- ial, and technological hierarchies. It is these lesser universities and colleges that turn out the "standardized specialists.. mediocre technicians...and pretentious mediocrities" mordantly, and perhaps un— fairly, described by the late Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin.

In the less reputable un— iversities especially, but to a lesser degree also in

the elite institutions, the grading system sifts

and selects personnel.

The honors graduate of a minor university has a chance to be admitted to

a prestige graduate or professional school and thereby to join a higher socio—economic track than . if mediocre grades had con- demned him to a career of school teaching, government'” clerking, or management of a small business. Similarly

for the top—ranking‘aluanS of the famus university lav school there awaits a junior partnership in a great

urban law firm, starting salary‘$15,000r while for the middle ranking graduate there is a government at- torney's job worth only‘ $8,000. to betin with.

These are facts of life ~with‘which we are all fame iliar, and they explain why a grades are viewed with such

ideadly seriousness by most

university students. In

the United States uniVers-

ity, grades until recently, have quite literally been matter of life and death

for some students, with

lush graduate shcool fellow- . ships reserved for some, ‘ death in Korea Or Vietnam

for others. '

Professors Cicourel and Kituse, in a study of ed- ucational bureaucracies,‘ describe this culling func-