Validity of Faculty Judgments of Student Performance: Relationship between Grades and Credits Earned and External Criterion Measures.
In national reports critical of the state of higher education [1, 6, 14, 15], criticism has been leveled at the traditional measures colleges and universities have utilized to determine student academic achievement grades and accumulation of credits. The reports' authors take the position that other forms of assessment will provide better evidence of student learning. Moreover, it is their belief that, if implemented, these forms of assessment would provide evidence of student learning that public and governmental officials could then use to judge the institutions' worthiness [8]. Indeed some states have undertaken or contemplated extensive assessment efforts to address this issue. These positions on higher education assessment practices are most curious considering the extent to which colleges and universities go to assess students. Boyer [4, p. 251] alludes to this paradox most succinctly, "American undergraduates are forever being measured. They go to class, take notes, write papers, have pop quizzes, report orally, and receive interim marks and final grades in every course." The discrepancy between the claims of the national reports and the practices of colleges and universities is evident. The national reports claim that grades and credits are neither valid nor reliable measures of student learning, whereas colleges and universities believe that they are. And though the claims of the national reports have not been substantiated and may reflect greater concern with the level of academic