I wrote about a lecture policy that I had in place in the past. In a nutshell, the policy gives all students “free” participation marks (e.g. 7%)—they would get them even if they didn’t do anything. But they would lose them if they were disruptive in class, engaged in disrespectful behaviour, or refused to make reasonable contributions in classroom activities.
I have received a few comments about this policy. One main concern that people had was that marks should never be given “free”, and a lecture policy can discourage disruptive behaviour etc. without giving “free” marks. I thought that’s reasonable, so I revised the policy. Disruptive behaviour etc. will still result in mark penalties, but there won’t be any “free” participation marks.
Recently, I came across Daryl Close’s paper Fair Grade (2009) when revising my group exams paper. He argues that non-academic misconduct such as disruptive behaviour should not be subject to mark penalties. The reason is that grades should reflect exclusively the student’s academic competence in the course. Since non-academic misconduct is unrelated to academic competence, it should not be punished with mark penalties. Instead, it would be more appropriate to ask the student to leave the classroom, ban them from attending future classes (unless they promise not to be disruptive again), give them an official reprimand, and so on.
I cannot fully address Close’s argument because it is more complex than what I have presented here. I will just make a few observations and raise some questions here. First, I wonder if preventing a disruptive student from attending classes amounts to a form of mark penalty. They won’t be able to attend classes, take part in learning activities, and learn from & with their classmates, so it’s likely that their grades will suffer. But wouldn’t the effect be the same as a mark penalty? The main difference is that a mark penalty is more “direct”, whereas a classroom ban “makes” the student less competent by preventing from learning. Again, this is an observation (or perhaps more a question) than an objection.
My second observation is more general: is it true that grades should exclusively reflect students’ academic competence? To the extent that university aims to develop students’ general academic and non-academic skills and personality (e.g. working as a team member, tenacity), shouldn’t assessment be partly based on such factors, contrary to what Close argues? Close argues that we have a responsibility to tell transcript readers (e.g. potential employers, scholarship committees, and graduate school selection committees) only the student’s academic competence. But suppose we asked such transcript readers: “The grades that you are seeing partly (say 10%) reflect the student’s academic and non-academic skills and personality. Do you think you are being misled and the grades should not reflect such factors?” I truly wonder how many of them would answer with a categorical “yes”. I think that some of them might even appreciate the inclusion of such factors.
One counterargument against my second point is that academic and non-academic factors are incommensurable. (This is indeed one argument that Gary Chartier (2003) used to support a conclusion similar to Close’s. Close cited this paper but didn’t mention this argument.) Academic and non-academic factors are so different that it wouldn’t make sense to measure them on the same scale and combine them into one final grade. This may be right, but my question/reply is that instructors have been combining other seemingly incommensurable factors into one grade. For instance, one may argue that, in an essay assignment, the strength of the arguments and the organization of the essay are incommensurable, but we do combine them, give them different weights, and assign the essay with a overall grade. Another example: instructors assign final grades based on different kinds of assignments: essays, worksheets, problem sets, short writing assignment, participation, and so on. Aren’t these assignments—at least some of them and to a degree—also incommensurable? This isn’t necessarily an argument against Chartier/Close. I am wondering whether the incommensurability problem can in some way be solved; I also wonder, if it is indeed a problem, it may be more wide-spread than Chartier is suggesting.
So, all in all, am I going to continue this lecture policy (i.e. mark penalties for disruptive behaviour)? Yes. At least I want to hear more about the arguments against this policy before I change it. I should add that this is not a policy that I want to enforce. It should be a last resort. And it should not be used as a stand-alone strategy, but in combination with other strategies for encouraging participation and preventing disruptive behaviour.
