Grading Standards for Undergraduate Courses
UO Economics
Approved by department faculty: May 2013
Grades are a measure of the extent to which a student has mastered subject matter required in a course. As such, grades are an important indicator of a student’s training and preparation for further study in higher-level economics courses and, eventually, their readiness for a professional career based on their economics training. It is important to note that while effort is a necessary input for mastering subject matter, grades are based on mastery of material, not a student’s effort level.
While instructors have flexibility in assigning letter grades to match performance, the following provides a general description of the mastery of material expected for a given letter grade:
A: Superior mastery of material. Consistently uses correct techniques and appropriate models for analysis. Able to provide intuition for calculated answers that displays excellent understanding of the relevant economic concepts. Makes few to no errors in calculations or in grammar for written assignments.
B: Good mastery of material. Can often identify correct techniques and appropriate models for analysis. Able to provide intuition for calculated answers that displays good understanding of the relevant economic concepts. Makes few errors in calculations or in grammar for written assignments.
C: Adequate mastery of material. Can identify correct techniques and appropriate models for analysis in a reasonable number of circumstances. Able to provide intuition for calculated answers that displays sufficient understanding of the relevant economic concepts. Makes some errors in calculations or in grammar for written assignments.
D: Poor mastery of material. Has difficulty identifying correct techniques and appropriate models for analysis. Often unable to provide sufficient intuition for calculated answers. Makes many errors in calculations or in grammar for written assignments.
F: Inadequate mastery of material. Can rarely identify correct techniques and appropriate models for analysis. Rarely able to provide sufficient intuition for calculated answers. Makes many errors in calculations or in grammar for written assignments.
The department takes grade inflation very seriously, as it undermines the ability of good students to identify their mastery of the material relative to others. Given that students’ performances will vary in predictable ways, our department directs its instructors to devise their grade distributions in each course according to a common standard. In particular, the department’s general rule for percent A’s and B’s (excluding grades of P, NP, I, X, Y, and W) for undergraduate courses will be 55% for lower-division courses (i.e., EC 101, 201, and 202), and 65% for 300-level and 400-level upper-division courses, excluding courses that cover advanced material with graduate students (e.g., EC 411, 413, 423, 424, and 425) or courses for honors students (e.g., EC 418 and 419). Reasonable deviations of course would be expected, for example, when a class does quite well or quite poorly. However, with rare exceptions, we expect deviations to lie within 10 percentage points of the above-stated means. Also, a grade of A+ is only to be given in rare circumstances when a student’s mastery of material is unusually outstanding.