Letter Grade Research Articles

The effects of mobile phone use on academic performance: A meta-analysis

PurposeAlthough the mobile phone has been conspicuously proliferated in the past decades, little is known about its influence; especially its effect on student learning and academic performance. Although there is a growing interest in mobile devices and their correlates and consequences for children, effects vary across related studies and the magnitude of the overall effect remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to further examine any relationships that may exist between mobile phone use and educational achievement. Research designA meta-analysis of research conducted on the relationship between mobile phone use and student educational outcomes over a 10-year period (2008–2017) was conducted. The operational definition of cell phone use to guide the implementation of this study is: any measure of mobile phone use, whether considered normative or problematic, that quantifies the extent to which a person uses a phone, feels an emotional or other dependence on a phone, or categorizes the types of uses and situations in which use occurs. Studies examining use for the express purpose of educational improvement are not included, as the aim of this study is to ascertain the effects of normal smartphone use. The operational definition of academic achievement to guide the implementation of this study is: any measure that quantifies the extent to which a student or group of students is performing or feels he or she is performing to a satisfactory level, including but not limited to letter grades and test scores, knowledge and skill acquisition, and self-reported measures of academic ability or difficulty. FindingsThe overall meta-analysis indicated that the average effect of mobile phone usage on student outcomes was r = −0.162 with a 95% confident interval of −0.196 to −0.128. The effect sizes of moderator variables (education level, region, study type, and whether the effect size was derived from a Beta coefficient, and mobile phone use construct) were analyzed. The results of this study and their implications for both research and practice are discussed.

Requiring Versus Recommending Preparation Before Class: Does It Matter?

Asking students to come to class prepared is quite common in undergraduate and graduate education. We use a quasiexperimental design to assess whether requiring undergraduate students in an introductory course to review prior to lecture the material that will be taught in class enhances their understanding of key concepts. We find that requiring rather than recommending preparation before class increases exam scores by about a quarter of a standard deviation, or roughly a third of a letter grade, for students in the second and third quartiles of the ability distribution but has little impact on very high‐ or low‐ability students. We also estimate local average treatment effects, from which we draw a similar conclusion: reviewing the material before lecture benefits students in the middle of the ability distribution but has essentially no impact on the top and bottom quartiles.

Effective and complete discovery of bidirectional order dependencies via set-based axioms

Integrity constraints (ICs) are useful for expressing and enforcing application semantics. Formulating ICs manually, however, requires domain expertise, is prone to human error, and can be exceedingly time-consuming. Thus, methods for automatic discovery have been developed for some classes of ICs, such as functional dependencies (FDs), and recently, order dependencies (ODs). ODs properly subsume FDs and can express business rules involving order; e.g., an employee who pays higher taxes has a higher salary than another employee. Bidirectional ODs further allow different ordering directions, ascending and descending, as in SQL’s order-by; e.g., a student with an alphabetically lower letter grade has a higher percentage grade than another student. We address the limitations of prior work on automatic OD discovery, which has factorial complexity, is incomplete, and is not concise. We present an efficient bidirectional OD discovery algorithm enabled by a novel polynomial mapping to a canonical form, and a sound and complete set of axioms for canonical bidirectional ODs to prune the search space. Our algorithm has exponential worst-case time complexity in the number of attributes and linear complexity in the number of tuples. We prove that it produces a complete and minimal set of bidirectional ODs, and we experimentally show orders of magnitude performance improvements over the prior state-of-the-art methodologies.

Three methods for robust grading

We propose three strategies by which a professor of a university course can assign final letter grades taking into account the natural uncertainty in students’ individual assignment and final numerical grades. The first strategy formalizes a common technique that identifies large gaps in the final numerical grades. For the second and third strategies, we introduce the notion of a borderline student, that is, a student who is close to, but below, the breakpoint for the next highest letter grade. Using mixed-integer linear programming and a tailor-made branch-and-bound algorithm, we choose the letter-grade breakpoints to minimize the number of borderline students. In particular, the second strategy treats the uncertainty implicitly and minimizes the number of borderline students, while the third strategy uses a robust-optimization approach to minimize the maximum number of borderline students that could occur based on an explicit uncertainty set. We compare the three strategies on realistic instances and identify overall trends as well as some interesting exceptions. While no strategy appears best in all cases, each can be computed in a reasonable amount of time for a moderately sized course. Moreover, they collectively provide the professor important insight into how uncertainty affects the assignment of final letter grades.

Evaluation of modified team-based learning activities on student performance on therapeutic assessments

Background and purposeTo determine if changing the focus of team-based learning (TBL) grading from written to verbal responses impacted students’ exam performance in those subjects and to assess student perception of utilization of course time. Educational activity and settingAssessment data from two consecutive respiratory therapeutics semesters was analyzed. These were the classes immediately before and after the TBL structural change. All data were de-identified, and student performance was assessed based on exam scores in each major subject that was covered by a TBL activity. Letter grades and student course evaluations were also compared. FindingsOne hundred fifty-two students were assessed. There was no significant difference in overall course grades between semesters. There was improvement in exam scores for allergic rhinitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (p = 0.001) and a decrease in exam scores for respiratory devices (p = 0.03). Total exam scores and other therapeutic topic scores demonstrated no differences. Student satisfaction in regard to having sufficient course time improved (p = 0.016). DiscussionOverall, students performed equally well in the class when removing the graded written portion of the TBL activity. There was also a trend towards improved student satisfaction after this modification. SummaryThe change in TBL grading was successful in improving students’ perceptions of the course without impacting their overall course grades, demonstrating that the TBL structure can be altered without losing the positive learning outcomes.

Do Morning Classes Improve Student Learning of Microeconomics Principles?

This article analyzes the impact of class time on students’ grades by using data from Middle Tennessee State University. The data cover a period of six years and are based on a sample of 5803 individuals who enrolled in 133 sections of principles of microeconomics. To identify the causal impact of class time on students’ grades, I used a bootstrapping method which allowed assigning measures of accuracy to sample estimates. For males, the estimated coefficients were negative and statistically significant at the 10% level, and the coefficients suggested that a male student in an afternoon class could expect to earn a letter grade that is 0.029 points lower than he would have earned by taking the class in the morning. For females, the estimated coefficients were not statistically significant.

Does Merit Have a Future?

Cathy N. davidson'Sthe new education: how to revolutionize the university to prepare students for a world in fluxchallenges us to address nonacademics, and to update our teaching, by focusing on the big picture. She calls on us to rise above departmental politics and the tribalism of disciplinary debates. Instead of engaging in those familiar struggles, we should be talking with our neighbors and our elected representatives about the advantages of eliminating letter grades; the virtues of pedagogies that are learner-centered, collaborative, and project-based; the perils of specialization; the damage that departments do by stifling change; the promise of educational technology if divorced from the profit motive; the myth that STEM degrees lead directly to career success; and, of course, the need for public reinvestment in higher education. Each of these talking points draws energy from Davidson's contention that digital media have rendered industrial models of education obsolete.

Specifications Grading in Political Science

ABSTRACTThis article explores the efficacy of specifications grading in undergraduate political science classes. Specifications grading organizes instruction around a set of learning objectives and evaluates student success based on the achievement of carefully articulated specifications for each assessment. Assessments are considered satisfactory or unsatisfactory and final grades are determined based on satisfactory completion of groups (bundles) of assignments, with a bundle linked to each letter grade. The are several advantages to this system: (1) it allows students to be strategic in the work they choose to complete; (2) it allows students to know where they stand without having to calculate weighted averages; and (3) it facilitates more efficient and reliable grading. In this essay, we provide an overview of this technique, reflections on how it works in practice, and what we consider to be best practices for implementation in political science.

Intended and unintended effects of student performance measurement reform in China

In the past few decades, the Chinese Ministry of Education has promoted “suzhi jiaoyu” (quality education) reforms. However, little is known about their impact. This paper evaluates an important component of the reforms that replaces using total scores with a letter grade system in high school admissions. I find that this change in student performance measurement achieved its intended goal of balancing learning across subjects but hindered high achievers with imbalanced performance. This paper also discusses how the measurement reform influenced the gender gap in achievements.

General Chemistry Student Attitudes and Success with Use of Online Homework: Traditional-Responsive versus Adaptive-Responsive.

We investigated whether use of an adaptive-responsive online homework system (OHS) that tailors homework to students' prior knowledge and periodically reassesses students to promote learning through practice retrieval has inherent advantages over traditional-responsive online homework. A quasi-experimental cohort control post-test-only design with nonequivalent groups and propensity scores with nearest neighbor matching (n = 6,114 pairs) was used. The adaptive system was found to increase the odds of a higher final letter grade for average, below average, and failing students. However, despite the learning advantages, students self-reported less favorable attitudes toward adaptive-responsive (3.15 of 5) relative to traditional-responsive OHS (3.31). Specific to the adaptive OHS, the following were found: (i) student attitudes were moderately and positively correlated (r = 0.36, p < 0.01) to final letter grade, (ii) most students (95%) reported engaging in remediation of incorrect responses, (iii) a majority of students (69%) reported changes in study habits, and (iv) students recognized the benefit of using adaptive OHS by ranking its assignments and explanations or review materials as two of the top three most useful course aspects contributing to perceived learning. Instructors can use our findings to inform their choice of online homework system for formative assessment of chemistry learning by weighing the benefits, disadvantages, and learning pedagogies of traditional-responsive versus adaptive-responsive systems.

Effects of a Confidence‐Based, Individualized Remediation Strategy on Student Learning and Final Grades in an Occupational Therapy Anatomy Course

Measuring the number of correct answers on high‐stakes course examinations represents a one‐dimensional approach to understanding student learning. While a total number of points can easily be used to award a final grade according to a predetermined scale, achievement of competencies, i.e., knowledge and skills, in direct relation to stated course learning outcomes is multidimensional. Self‐confidence and general self‐efficacy play an important role in performance. For example, assessment methods that incorporate measures of both correctness and confidence detect student awareness of lack of knowledge (low confidence for an incorrect answer), misinformation (high confidence for an incorrect answer), guesswork (low confidence for a correct answer), as well as content mastery (high confidence for a correct answer). The present study investigated whether employing an individualized re‐examination approach in which self‐confidence was taken into account to remediate poor academic performance impacted student learning and final grades.On each of six high‐stakes lecture (selected‐response) and lab (constructed‐response) examinations, a 2016 cohort of 64 occupational therapy anatomy students reported self‐confidence on a 3‐point Likert‐type scale for their answers to each exam question. All exam questions were specifically linked to course learning objectives. After each examination, each student received written feedback regarding the six learning objectives on which they performed poorest based on their confidence in the correctness of their answers. On the subsequent examination, each student was administered six Individualized Remediation Questions (IRQs) retesting each of the six identified learning objectives. Examinations were scored and remediation performance was analyzed.All students showed an average increase in performance on IRQs retesting course learning objectives compared to their initial performance; students answered an average of 54 ± 5 (75% ± 6.9%) of 72 total IRQs with a higher correctness/confidence performance level than before (p &lt; 0.001). Having to answer IRQs caused the overall grade percentages of all 64 students to decrease by an average of −2.02% ± 0.8% (p &lt; 0.001). Grade percentage decreases ranged from −0.34% to −4.38% and translated to a lower letter grade for 16 students (25%) (p &lt; 0.001). In an end‐of‐course survey, 29 students (45.3%) reported IRQs helped them master and retain more course content, while 46 students (71.9%) believed those same questions lowered their grade. Only 12 students (18.8%) believed they learned more yet likely received lower grades because of the intervention.This study demonstrates how a confidence‐based assessment method can be used to create a remediation intervention that more meaningfully assesses student performance. Even though being retested on objectives tended to have a negative impact on their final grade, this remediation strategy enhances student performance and perceptions of their learning by more accurately aligning correctness with confidence. Better understanding student confidence and attitudes toward learning may inform other strategies to successfully remediate poor academic performance.Support or Funding InformationNorth Dakota INBREThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Enhancing student performance in introductory physics in topics related to electricity and magnetism through the use of voluntary workshops

This article examines the effect of voluntary workshops on students’ performance in a university for algebra-based introductory physics on the topics of electricity, magnetism and related areas. A workshop is an optional one-hour-per-week session that promotes a small group’s peer instruction and co-operative learning, in order to enhance the conceptual understanding of physical principles and to improve problem-solving skills. During the workshops, a small group of students were encouraged to exchange ideas in a co-operative learning environment. Most students enrolled were poorly motivated, underprepared, and did not possess the prerequisite mathematics needed. For those who attended workshops, the result of scores on a standardized conceptual survey in electricity and magnetism showed a pre-test−post-test gain of 21% in the number of correct responses. This is to be contrasted with a 5% increase for those students who did not attend workshops. Further, we present a breakdown of the final letter grades obtained by students who attended workshops versus those who did not. Since the introduction of the workshops (out of 374 students), 95% of those who attended made a ‘C’ or better in the course. This compares to only 50% of the students who did not attend workshops and making a ‘C’ or better. The workshops have been offered since the Fall of 2010, but analyzed data includes fourteen years of student letter grades from 2001 to 2014 in order to study the effects on the workshops of the D, F, or W grades (DFW rate). We report a 7% reduction of the DFW rates, which we attribute to the incorporation of the workshops. The workshops are easy to implement and relatively inexpensive, yet appear to be an effective instructional method that enhances the success of underprepared students.

No Significant Difference - Unless you are a Jumper

Much of the e-education literature suggests that there is no significant difference in aggregate student learning outcomes between online and face-to-face instruction. In this study, we develop a model that forecasts the grade that individual students would have most likely earned in the alternate class setting. Students for whom the difference between the actual grade received in one class format (for example, online) and the forecasted grade in the other class setting (for example, face-to-face) is one full letter grade or higher are called “jumpers.” Our findings indicate that jumpers are numerous, suggesting that whereas no significant difference may exist between instruction settings at the aggregate level, at the individual level, the choice between settings matters. These results have important implications for the no significant difference literature and strongly support the need for refined course setting advisement for students.

Use of the letter-based grading information disclosure system and its influence on dining establishment choice in Singapore: A cross-sectional study

The aim of this study was to examine the consumer use of Singapore's letter based grading information disclosure system and its influence on dining establishment choice. We used data from a national survey of 1533 households collected from 2012 to 2013 in Singapore to assess (i) the proportion of adults who refer to the letter grade before dining and (ii) the impact of the letter grade on their willingness to dine at an establishment. We used multivariable logistic regression to account for the independent effects of socio-demographic factors. The proportion of respondents who referred to a letter grade before dining was 64.5% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 62.1%, 66.9%). Propensity for referral differed by dining frequency, ethnicity and employment. Fewer respondents were willing to dine at a ‘C’ (lower) graded establishment [10.3% (95% CI = 8.8%, 11.8%)] compared to a ‘B’ graded establishment [85.3% (95% CI = 83.5%, 87.0%)]. Willingness to dine at a ‘C’ graded establishment differed by dining frequency, housing type and citizenship. The letter based grading information disclosure system in Singapore is commonly used among Singaporeans and influences establishment choice. Our findings suggest that information disclosure systems can be an effective tool in influencing consumer establishment choice and may be useful to help improve food safety in retail food establishments. The implementation of such information disclosure systems should be considered in other countries where it has yet to be introduced and be periodically assessed for its effectiveness and to identify areas requiring improvements.

Predictors of school absenteeism severity at multiple levels: A classification and regression tree analysis

School attendance is an important foundational competency for children and adolescents, but rates of problematic school absenteeism have remained high and steady. Efforts to conceptualize problematic school absenteeism across its myriad psychiatric symptoms, risk factors, and intervention types have centered recently on multi-tiered systems of support models that arrange these variables into prevention, early intervention, and intensive intervention tiers. Unfortunately, research into absenteeism severity levels to demarcate these tiers remains sparse. The present study utilized nonparametric classification and regression tree analysis to examine multiple demographic and academic risk factors simultaneously in a very large and diverse community sample. Academic variables included grade level, letter grades, grade point average, individualized education plan eligibility, and participation in school sports. Demographic variables included youth age, gender, and ethnicity. The study aimed to identify risk categories for school absenteeism severity at the 1%+, 10%+, and 15%+ levels and across elementary, middle, and high school levels. Results indicated a more homogeneous set of risk factors at the 10%+ and 15%+ levels than the 1%+ level, in particular with respect to low GPA, age 15.5 + years, African American or American Indian ethnicity, and grades 1, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, or 12. The results have implications for identifying highest risk youth to further improve assessment, prevention, and intervention practices for this population.

Using validated measures of high school academic achievement to predict university success

ABSTRACTAdministrative data from a New Zealand university are used to validate the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) Rank Score used in university admissions and scholarship decisions. We find no statistical evidence to corroborate the specific weighting scheme used in this index. For example, our regression analysis suggests that too much weight is attached to the lowest category of credits in predicting both successful completion outcomes and letter grades. To show the potential importance of this validated measure of high school achievement, we run several simulations on these first-year student outcomes at this university. We show that the use of an alternative, empirically-validated measure of NCEA results to select students would lead to only slight improvements in course completion rates and letter grades. These higher entry standards would lead to declines in the proportions of Pacifica students, but minimal impacts on the proportion of Māori students enrolled at this university.

Report Card Grades on the Physical Activity of Children and Youth From 10 Countries With High Human Development Index: Global Matrix 3.0.

The Global Matrix 3.0 brings together the Report Card grades for 10 physical activity indicators for children and youth from 49 countries. This study describes and compares the Global Matrix 3.0 findings among 10 countries with high Human Development Index. Report Cards on physical activity indicators were developed by each country following a harmonized process. Countries informed their Report Cards with the best and most recent evidence available. Indicators were graded using a common grading rubric and benchmarks established by the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance. A database of grades from the countries was compiled, and letter grades were converted to numerical equivalents. Descriptive statistics and scores for groups of indicators were calculated, and correlation analyses were conducted. Grades for the 10 countries clustered around "D" ranging from "F" to "B+." Active Transportation had the highest average grade ("C"), whereas Overall Physical Activity had the lowest average grade ("D-"). Low grades were observed for both behavioral and sources of influence indicators. In the context of social and economical changes of high- Human Development Index countries, urgent actions to increase physical activity among children and youth are required. Surveillance and monitoring efforts are required to fill research gaps.

Indicators of Physical Activity Among Children and Youth in 9 Countries With Low to Medium Human Development Indices: A Global Matrix 3.0 Paper.

This study compares results of physical activity report cards from 9 countries with low to medium human development indices, participating in the Global Matrix 3.0 initiative. Country-specific report cards were informed by relevant data and government policy documents, reporting on 10 core indicators of physical activity for children and youth. Data were synthesized by report card working groups following a harmonized process. Grade assignments for each indicator utilized a standard grading rubric. Indicators were grouped into one of 2 categories: daily behaviors and settings and sources of influence. Descriptive statistics (average grades) were computed after letter grades were converted into interval variables. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients were calculated for all correlation analyses. Mean grades for daily behaviors were higher (C) than those for settings and sources of influence (D+). Twenty-nine out of the possible 90 grades were assigned an incomplete. There were moderate to strong positive and negative relationships between different global indices and overall physical activity, organized sport and physical activity, active play, family, community and environment, and government. Findings demonstrate an urgent need for high-quality data at the country level in order to better characterize the physical activity levels of children and youth in countries with low to medium human development indices.

Global Matrix 3.0 Physical Activity Report Card Grades for Children and Youth: Results and Analysis From 49 Countries.

Accumulating sufficient moderate to vigorous physical activity is recognized as a key determinant of physical, physiological, developmental, mental, cognitive, and social health among children and youth (aged 5-17y). The Global Matrix 3.0 of Report Card grades on physical activity was developed to achieve a better understanding of the global variation in child and youth physical activity and associated supports. Work groups from 49 countries followed harmonized procedures to develop their Report Cards by grading 10 common indicators using the best available data. The participating countries were divided into 3 categories using the United Nations' human development index (HDI) classification (low or medium, high, and very high HDI). A total of 490 grades, including 369 letter grades and 121 incomplete grades, were assigned by the 49 work groups. Overall, an average grade of "C-," "D+," and "C-" was obtained for the low and medium HDI countries, high HDI countries, and very high HDI countries, respectively. The present study provides rich new evidence showing that the situation regarding the physical activity of children and youth is a concern worldwide. Strategic public investments to implement effective interventions to increase physical activity opportunities are needed.

Report Card Grades on the Physical Activity of Children and Youth Comparing 30 Very High Human Development Index Countries.

To better understand the childhood physical inactivity crisis, Report Cards on physical activity of children and youth were prepared concurrently in 30 very high Human Development Index countries. The aim of this article was to present, describe, and compare the findings from these Report Cards. The Report Cards were developed using a harmonized process for data gathering, assessing, and assigning grades to 10 common physical activity indicators. Descriptive statistics were calculated after converting letter grades to interval variables, and correlational analyses between the 10 common indicators were performed using Spearman's rank correlation coefficients. A matrix of 300 grades was obtained with substantial variations within and between countries. Low grades were observed for behavioral indicators, and higher grades were observed for sources of influence indicators, indicating a disconnect between supports and desired behaviors. This analysis summarizes the level and context of the physical activity of children and youth among very high Human Development Index countries, and provides additional evidence that the situation regarding physical activity in children and youth is very concerning. Unless a major shift to a more active lifestyle happens soon, a high rate of noncommunicable diseases can be anticipated when this generation of children reaches adulthood.