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An Analysis of the COVID-19-Induced Flexible Grading Policy at a Public University

To help students cope with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education institutions offered students flexible grading policies that blended traditional letter grades with alternative grading options such as the pass–fail or credit–no credit options. This study conducted an in-depth ana...

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Autores principales: Mostafa, Sayed A., Ferguson, Robert, Tang, Guoqing, Ashqer, Mujahid
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Palgrave Macmillan UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10199666/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37360957
http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41307-023-00315-2
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author Mostafa, Sayed A.
Ferguson, Robert
Tang, Guoqing
Ashqer, Mujahid
author_facet Mostafa, Sayed A.
Ferguson, Robert
Tang, Guoqing
Ashqer, Mujahid
author_sort Mostafa, Sayed A.
collection PubMed
description To help students cope with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education institutions offered students flexible grading policies that blended traditional letter grades with alternative grading options such as the pass–fail or credit–no credit options. This study conducted an in-depth analysis of the flexible grading policy at a medium-sized university in the USA. We studied the differential selection of flexible grading options by course characteristics and students’ sociodemographics and academic profiles between Spring 2020 and Spring 2021. We also examined the impacts of the policy on sequential courses. Our analysis utilized administrative and transcript data for undergraduate students at the study institution and employed a combination of descriptive statistics and regression models. The analysis revealed that the flexible grading policy was utilized differently depending on course characteristics, with core courses and subjects like mathematics, chemistry, and economics having higher rates of usage. Additionally, sociodemographic and academic profile factors led to varying degrees of utilization, with males, urban students, freshmen, and non-STEM majors using the policy more frequently. Furthermore, the analysis suggested that the policy may have disadvantaged some students as they struggled in subsequent courses after using the pass option. Several implications and directions for future research are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-101996662023-05-23 An Analysis of the COVID-19-Induced Flexible Grading Policy at a Public University Mostafa, Sayed A. Ferguson, Robert Tang, Guoqing Ashqer, Mujahid High Educ Policy Original Article To help students cope with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education institutions offered students flexible grading policies that blended traditional letter grades with alternative grading options such as the pass–fail or credit–no credit options. This study conducted an in-depth analysis of the flexible grading policy at a medium-sized university in the USA. We studied the differential selection of flexible grading options by course characteristics and students’ sociodemographics and academic profiles between Spring 2020 and Spring 2021. We also examined the impacts of the policy on sequential courses. Our analysis utilized administrative and transcript data for undergraduate students at the study institution and employed a combination of descriptive statistics and regression models. The analysis revealed that the flexible grading policy was utilized differently depending on course characteristics, with core courses and subjects like mathematics, chemistry, and economics having higher rates of usage. Additionally, sociodemographic and academic profile factors led to varying degrees of utilization, with males, urban students, freshmen, and non-STEM majors using the policy more frequently. Furthermore, the analysis suggested that the policy may have disadvantaged some students as they struggled in subsequent courses after using the pass option. Several implications and directions for future research are discussed. Palgrave Macmillan UK 2023-05-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10199666/ /pubmed/37360957 http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41307-023-00315-2 Text en © International Association of Universities 2023, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Original Article
Mostafa, Sayed A.
Ferguson, Robert
Tang, Guoqing
Ashqer, Mujahid
An Analysis of the COVID-19-Induced Flexible Grading Policy at a Public University
title An Analysis of the COVID-19-Induced Flexible Grading Policy at a Public University
title_full An Analysis of the COVID-19-Induced Flexible Grading Policy at a Public University
title_fullStr An Analysis of the COVID-19-Induced Flexible Grading Policy at a Public University
title_full_unstemmed An Analysis of the COVID-19-Induced Flexible Grading Policy at a Public University
title_short An Analysis of the COVID-19-Induced Flexible Grading Policy at a Public University
title_sort analysis of the covid-19-induced flexible grading policy at a public university
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10199666/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37360957
http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41307-023-00315-2
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