Question 7
Most teachers assign final grades by using the mathematical mean (the “average”) to determine them. Give at least 2 reasons why the mean may not be the best measure of achievement by explaining what the mean hides.
All measures of center hide variation.
This is what makes them useful, and it is what makes them problematic.
Using the mean makes zeroes a problem in grading. Wildly divergent values (such as a zero in a gradebook) will greatly affect the mean. It is hard to argue that 2 A’s and a zero is the same as consistent D work. Yet this is how the mean plays out.
But going too far down this road will only lead to critiques of the whole system of grading students at all. I find that system to be indefensible and counterproductive. I have made my peace with it, and I try to do as little harm as possible with the responsibility I have to assign grades in my work.
All of which is to say, it is not using the mean that leads to a poor measure of achievement. It is mistaking quantitative measures for accurate ones that leads to a poor measure of achievement.
Overthinking my teaching 