Present practices in administering quality points in 172 American colleges and universities

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Introduction.-Without attempting to go into an extensive history of the development of the practice of requiring quality points for graduation in American colleges and universities, it might be said that, at the present time, they are generally considered an instrument for measuring, in a general way, the quality of all work done by the student in his collegiate career. This recognition of quality of work done seems to be based on the assumption that in addition to a given quantity of work the student should have maintained reasonably acceptable qualitative standards. The discussion presented in the following paragraphs is a brief summary of an investigation made at the Mississippi State College for Women when this institution was considering some changes in its grading system. In order to obtain the data, a questionnaire was sent to each college in the United States having 500 or more students, and to many colleges that are recognized leaders in collegiate education even though their student bodies were not of the size mentioned. From this group of schools 172 responses were collected. Thirty-two of the total number of respondents reported that they made no use of quality points. This means, of course, that 140 of the 172 respondents use quality points in some form or other. Practices in Administering Quality Points.-Assuming that a student passes the required number of hours for graduation and amasses the required number of quality points, there are no problems to arise in the administration of quality points. Most problems concerned with the administration of this device arise when it is discovered that a given student has passed a sufficient number of hours for graduation, but has failed to do this work with sufficient skill to be awarded the required number of quality points. In considering the following summary statements it will be well to keep in mind that, in collecting the data, the following plan of quality points was suggested to the respondents: A grade of A received three quality points per credit hour; B, two quality points per credit hour; C, one quality point per credit hour; D, no quality points per credit