How Many Points for Failure?

Dr. Norma Lize is a young, dedicated college teacher who needs some advice.

Dr. Lize uses a standard grading system for her courses: 90% and above is an A, 80-89% is a B, etc. Students take tests, submit papers and other assignments, participate in class, do group research projects—and earn points for each of these. Anything under 60% on an assignment earns an F. When a student’s average for all the assignments doesn’t reach 60%, the student fails the course.

Most of the time this works quite well. However, Norma says, “Every so often a student will miss an assignment—just not hand anything in. My policy is to give them a generous grace period after which the missing assignment earns “0 points.” When I wrote my syllabus, that seemed only fair—no paper, no points. In fact, ‘learning how to meet deadlines’ is a course objective of mine, so it seems only right to fail them on the assignment. But I’m beginning to think my 0 points policy was a mistake.”

She continues: “Why destroy a student’s entire average in the course for one blown assignment? Let’s say the assignment is worth 20% of the student’s grade. If they had a 90 (A-) average on all their other assignments, they’d get a 72 in the course – down two grades. What if I gave the student a 55 for the assignment? Then they’d earn an 83. They still failed the assignment, but the final grade is more an indication of their overall performance.” Some of you may recognize this as almost the opposite of the situation I wrote about last month, in which a student offered to give away points to other students in the class.

At this point, dear readers, let me ask you some questions and ask for your opinion, and why you hold that opinion. First: Is it OK to give students 55 points in this circumstance? Norma (who, BTW, is soon to marry another professor, Dr. M. Perry Tiv) wants to actualize the principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. She wants to maximize the good that she does for her students, minimize harm, and treat students fairly with respect to each other. Is it fair to students who handed in something for the assignment that somebody who handed in nothing still gets points? Would it do anybody harm?

Norma can see that if a student turned in an assignment that earned 50 points, it would seem very unfair to give 55 points to a student who didn’t submit anything. “They didn’t even try.” That leads to her next question: What if she gave the failing students one (or two, or three) points less than the lowest grade earned by any other student, up to a maximum of 59? That way, people who handed in something would always get more points than people who handed in nothing. Would that be fairer? More beneficial?

Another problem is that she already advertised her grading system. It would violate the principles of veracity (truth-telling) and fidelity (trust) to change policy in the middle of a semester. So let’s take another path with these questions: What if, next semester, she tweaked her policy and put in her syllabus that assignments not submitted would earn 55 (or 50, or 1 point below the lowest number of) points? Would that be a better policy than her current one? Why or why not? For example, would the new policy be rewarding some students for doing nothing?

Norma (who, BTW, lives with her sister, Krysta) has more questions. What if she says in her next syllabus that assignments not submitted will earn “a failing grade?" Then she could determine the number of points on a case-by-case basis. After all, some students might have a good reason (not excuse, but reason) for not turning in the paper, even with the grace period. A death in the family. Illness. Issues related to the pandemic. Maybe there’s a student who didn’t understand what a “grace period” is and is too intimidated to ask. Do we really want to penalize that student as much as a student who just didn’t try? Might a “sliding scale” grade for failure allow Norma to take into account important differences among students and thereby achieve some equity in the classroom?

Some variations on this theme: Could she give missed assignments, or completed but failed assignments for that matter, different numbers of points at different times in the semester? Or for different types of assignments? Or to students who text in class? Or to students she doesn’t like? Or to students who don’t use complete sentences? Or to students who are too lazy to complete their lists, etc.?

I’d love to hear your views on these questions and to have you share your thinking on related situations that you can anticipate, have experienced yourself, or have seen on old sitcoms. On behalf of Dr. Lize (and her other sister, Rhea): Thanks.