In this week’s episode Greg and Patrick have fun exploring the questionably valid but always high stakes role of the grade point average, or GPA. They consider the different ways in which grades can be assigned, what they may or may not actually represent, and how they have become increasingly inflated over time. Along the way, they also discuss not being agnostic, math vs. sociology, avoiding homework, eye patches, participation credit, revenge committee assignments, trust falls, bad dermatologists, meeting expectations, Trojan horse questions, failing law school, picking your battles, GPA as rolling D&D dice, and holding forth.
Related Episodes
- S7E07: Is the SAT Biased and Should be Banned? Maybe…
- S6E02: Judging Inter-Rater Reliability
- S2E33: Truth, Balderdash, and Construct Validity
- S1E12: Measurement (Non)Invariance: Can We Ever Fail to Not Incorrectly Reject It?
Recommended Readings
Claybaugh, A. (2025). Re-Centering Academics at Harvard College: Update on Grading and Workload.
Elliott, R. and Strenta, A. (1988). Effects of improving the reliability of the GPA on prediction generally and on comparative predictions for gender and race particularly. Journal of
Educational Measurement, 25, 333–347.
Johnson, V. E. (1997). An alternative to traditional GPA for evaluating student performance. Statistical Science, 12(4), 251-278.
Johnson, V. E. (2003). Grade inflation: A crisis in college education. New York, NY: Springer New York.
Shouping Hu (2005). Beyond Grade Inflation: Grading Problems in Higher Education. ASHE Higher Education Report, Vol. 30, No. 6. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Young, J. W. (1990). Adjusting the cumulative GPA using item response theory. Journal of Educational Measurement, 12, 175–186.