With many universities beginning to take their classes online, they have begun to change their grading scale to a pass/fail grade in order to relieve student stress. However, is that the right move to make?
In many ways, the Coronavirus pandemic had begun to wreak havoc on student life, the faculty, and many other staff members. Many of these universities have even moved many of their classes online, and even encourage students to leave campus, which has caused a flurry of confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety.
Many universities have gone on to choose to go to a pass/fail grading system for students due to this crisis. Typically, you would see this option of pass/fail, rather than being given a letter grade, is only available to students for a limited number of classes. Oftentimes, the students have to make a commitment to this grading system before the class has even begun. There are also many restrictions on the types of classes that can be counted as a pass/fail, and it will more than likely never count towards your GPA.
The university Provost and administration have said that their reasoning for this is to lessen the burden put on students by this pandemic due to the inflexibility of many of the guidelines put in place by the university. In some cases, if the university has not come out with a direct answer regarding this topic, students have taken the burden on themselves and sent out online petitions asking for a shift in university grading policy.
It can feel stressful to complete tasks and other assignments when the ability to not meet with your professors, teaching assistants, and other students. Additionally, it doesn’t help if there is a lot of traveling involved, or having to take synchronous classes in different time zones. By making the semester “lower stakes”, it wouldn’t necessarily discourage students from doing well in their classes, but it would allow for some leeway for those that have been put into tough academic situations.
For the most part, many teachers have no idea how to navigate online. They can be masters in their field and answer any questions that you have for them, but managing to put up assignments online, getting a meeting started, or knowing how to mute and unmute themselves is like Mission Impossible for them.
When pass and fail are the only options, it allows the grader to focus on learning and growth, while students have more opportunities to try, mess up and improve without feeling that everything is lost or their GPA is ruined. Some universities have opted for this more flexible policy of allowing students to choose for each class if they would like a letter grade.
However, for those students that are planning to go to medical school, law school, or applying for graduate schools, may benefit from having letter grades displayed and calculated into GPA. Many higher education institutions like the ones lifted above want actual grade evidence that the work was completed at a higher level than seeing that a student managed to just pass the class.
Whether pass/fail is good or not, one thing is for sure. This pandemic will not be ending anytime soon, and it is best that universities try and accommodate students as much as possible since they are the ones that are having to deal with the brunt force that Covid-19 is putting on them.