Engagement vs. Grades

I am still surfing on the wave of energy I picked up from attending the Educause Learning Initiative 2010 Annual Meetings last week. As Gardner Campbell has said, faculty development is not a frill, but rather the oxygen academics need to breath. (Someone retold this quote in a session I attended though Gardner himself was elsewhere, and of course, I’d heard Gardner say it before.)  I still have much to process before I blog on the conference itself, but the energizing made me pick up something the other day that I need to just put out there.

At my institution’s State of the University address two weeks ago (another subject I need to blog about), we learned that the new watchword is productivity, as measured in particular by retention and graduation rates. I understand metrics, but I wonder if these two illuminate or obscure  problems.

As a macro economist, I am very sensitive to what we call “aggregation error.” When you look at the big picture, say by computing an average, you always lose information. Aggregation error asks: Does the average accurately characterize the group? Imagine a group consisting of half poor people and half rich people. The average suggests the group is middle income, which is completely misleading. That’s aggregation error.  If the government asked ‘Do we have a poverty problem?’ the answer based on the average income would be ‘no’.  And it would be wrong.

One key to student success in higher education appears to be engagement, and student engagement has become a big issue–look at the growing importance of the NSSE, etc.  I want to teach students who are engaged in the topic we’re studying. I would rather teach someone who cares about their learning, than one who gets good grades without caring. Perhaps I have a personal bias here. I never thought much about grades in college. I cared about learning and I worked hard and let the grades fall where they may. I was not an A student, but I learned more than many of my friends who were. (One example: I tutored friends who ended up with better grades than I, but didn’t necessarily understand more.)

Inside Higher Education recently reported on a fascinating study about the relation between grades and engagement.  It’s commonly understood that grades, engagement, and most importantly learning are positively correlated.  The study confirms that grades improve with a student’s engagement, but finds also that the result isn’t necessarily ‘high’ grades.  Engagement causes progress, better grades (and thus better “student outcomes”), but not necessarily ‘high’ grades.   Engagement is a good proxy for learning, but grades are only a weak proxy, a point I’ve stressed before.  The study points out that earning high grades doesn’t necessarily mean one is engaged.  As a consequence, using grades to measure engagement is a type of aggregation error.

While organizations necessarily look at aggregate data as metrics, we must not forget that students are individuals, and the institution needs to treat them (and provide support for them) as such.  One size doesn’t fit all.