this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
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Anon takes an exam (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 week ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to c/greentext@sh.itjust.works
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[–] argon@lemmy.today 36 points 1 week ago (4 children)

A class of 200 students performing much worse than the last class is very unlikely. 200 Students is enough to make even small differences statistically significant.

A single test being much harder than the last test is much more likely, since it isn't an averahe of 200, it's a single datapoint.

That's why if this semester's class performed much worse than last semester's, you can assume it's because of the test, not the students.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 days ago

Or more likely, instruction was lacking and didn't cover the material on the test properly.

[–] Natanael@infosec.pub 2 points 6 days ago

Not unlikely enough, even something as simple as more students studying harder between years would mean the next set of average students drop in score despite the same performance.

Grading on a curve is always unfair when the grade carries forward and isn't just for a one-off application. More unfair when classes are smaller and student cohorts differ.

[–] TwanHE@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago

Or when there are 1000 students over multiple classes getting 5 different versions of the test (to make looking over someone's shoulder more difficult.)

If one of those has a significantly lower average it's more likely it just had a few badly worded questions than that those 200 randomly picked students are all bad at the given subject.