Where are the standards of a University education heading? (2 Viewers)

[undalay]

They should just raise the pass mark. Say from 50 to 60.

That way people get the right to attend university, but only those with talent/motivation will actually get the degree.

and the unis will still make money

 

[whatashotbyseve]

But if you go for a preliminary degree + your specialised skill set, you are looking at 4-5 years. Is it worth the opportunity cost?

 

[Iron]

I think that talent is still being used, but the process is pretty insufficient atm. Univerity is fast becoming a stagnant place where high school students can continue to hang out and do all sorts of mindless selfish things for years. I view this as inefficient and morally corrupting; better to cut such institutions out altogether and leave it all to the private sector.
But university can still be a place where young people are moralized and disciplined in pursuits broader than their profession and themselves. However, it is infested with left-wing dinosaurs and poisonous postmodernists that prevent this positive growth

 

[Graney]

I don't think there's a problem with allowing any number of people to attend university. So long as their courses are rigorous, and they can only pass and receive their bachelors if they really have earned it.

I've seen no evidence this is not the case.

There would only be a problem if courses were becoming easier, I see no problem with allowing a broad range of people access to education and opportunity. So long as obtaining the qualification is still subject to rigorous standards, the respect for the institution will remain.

 

[whatashotbyseve]

I would argue that university is not subject to rigorous standards. Having a conceded pass as an option is not rigorous. Lecturers and tutors seem to be under pressure to pass a certain number of their cohort each year, no matter how unsuitable their aptitude (marks) or attitude (not turning up to class) is.

 

[Lentern]

I think that talent is still being used, but the process is pretty insufficient atm. Univerity is fast becoming a stagnant place where high school students can continue to hang out and do all sorts of mindless selfish things for years. I view this as inefficient and morally corrupting; better to cut such institutions out altogether and leave it all to the private sector.
But university can still be a place where young people are moralized and disciplined in pursuits broader than their profession and themselves. However, it is infested with left-wing dinosaurs and poisonous postmodernists that prevent this positive growth

Well i'm sure you'd be welcome at Notre Dame if that is how you feel.

 

[blue_chameleon]

I don't think there's a problem with allowing any number of people to attend university. So long as their courses are rigorous, and they can only pass and receive their bachelors if they really have earned it.

I've seen no evidence this is not the case.

There would only be a problem if courses were becoming easier, I see no problem with allowing a broad range of people access to education and opportunity. So long as obtaining the qualification is still subject to rigorous standards, the respect for the institution will remain.

I agree in principle, but reality nudges me and tells me that those institutions that are making degree programs easier through certain subjects within the degree, aren't exactly going to be advertising the fact.

Taking up a point mentioned earlier, I think there is a lot of merit in the idea of raising the pass mark from 50%. At the moment, the fact that you can pass subjects with only half of the knowledge of the course material is nothing short of a joke. Imo, the pass mark needs to be lifted to 70%.

Private enterprise realise this, yet unfortunately it's not in a universities best interest to raise pass marks. Thus, you have students with appalling GPA/WAM's that then realise they have thrown money into a well throughout their time at university.

 

[Will Shakespear]

private enterprise can blame themselves for always choosing someone who gets 50's but captained their under 6's soccer team over someone who gets 95's but didn't

 

[darkwolfzx]

My lecturer once said that if you passed the course, you were considered to have mastered the objectives of that course. He really meant it literally, because he set a prac exam so thorough that a number of my fellow students were left behind to repeat over summer.

In a past interview he said he would have failed students who hadn't put in enough effort the second time round, but he was trapped by politics, when he received an email from the head of school that if he didn't pass enough students, the school would lose funding. Grudgingly, he had to allow a greater number to scrape through.

I suppose in hindsight he was right in placing his values as an academic above simply allowing people through the system.

 

[Graney]

I'd say in any course where the final examination composes a substantial amount of the course mark, then passing students on >50% is fair.

Final examinations are a joke. You are expected to memorise and regurgitate 13 weeks of content on the spot. It has little bearing or relationship to real workplace competencies. It's an extremely stressful way of evaluating students, that doesn't emphasize understanding, but rather rote learning and memorisation.

Where the course marking is based more heavily on ongoing assessments throughout the course (a model many universities are moving towards, and a much better one), it may be fair to raise the pass mark above 50%.

 

[whatashotbyseve]

I wish MQ was moving towards this model. I have never had an exam below 50% in weighting. Had a 70% weighting once. I don't like ROTE learning but I can handle it in exams. My GPA would be more a lot closer to distinction than in between credit-distinction if exams had a lower weighting.

 

[blue_chameleon]

I'd say in any course where the final examination composes a substantial amount of the course mark, then passing students on >50% is fair.

Final examinations are a joke. You are expected to memorise and regurgitate 13 weeks of content on the spot. It has little bearing or relationship to real workplace competencies. It's an extremely stressful way of evaluating students, that doesn't emphasize understanding, but rather rote learning and memorisation.

Where the course marking is based more heavily on ongoing assessments throughout the course (a model many universities are moving towards, and a much better one), it may be fair to raise the pass mark above 50%.

Graney, I agree.

Like whatashotbyseve (is there anything shorter, perhaps? ) in all my time at uni, I have yet to get an exam weighted below 60%. Not ideal, considering exams aren't exactly my cup of tea.

But in all honesty, for my field of study I don't see any real alternative that would test the level of understanding of these competencies. Mid-term quizzes place the same pressures and constraints on students as exams, and essays/ research papers don't gauge effectively enough a students grasp on the matter.

 

[whatashotbyseve]

Lol Iron seems to like the Whatashot. I don't mind what I am called (maybe seve? only 4 letters) , its not like I can get confused with anyone.

In marketing in the workplace, a lot of work is creative freedom. Which cannot easily be expressed in exams. A lot of the grad programs I have applied for at the moment realise this and have asked out of the box questions for applicants.

 

[blue_chameleon]

Lol Iron seems to like the Whatashot. I don't mind what I am called (maybe seve? only 4 letters) , its not like I can get confused with anyone.

In marketing in the workplace, a lot of work is creative freedom. Which cannot easily be expressed in exams. A lot of the grad programs I have applied for at the moment realise this and have asked out of the box questions for applicants.

Yeah, well with marketing (beyond the foundational courses) I guess having 70% weighting on exams is pretty harsh.

 

[Funky Monk]

Most of my exams are weighted at about 40%. Is rare for any to be 50%<, which i'm fairly comfortable with.
I agree with heavily weighted exams being a rubbish process for differentiating student aptitude. For many of the base 1st year units which weren't particularly relevant to my chosen degree i was able to just drag my arse all semester and then cram and use the exam to boost my mark to a credit/distinction/whatever.
If we had had weightings from 50-70% i would have walked away with perhaps HDs for units i now remember almost nothing of.

 

[banco55]

I've been told by more then one tutor/lecturer that the reason they like final exams with a big weighting is because of the level of plagarism and people helping other people do their work.

 

[Graney]

Plagiarism is a major force in undermining the value of a modern tertiary education. Back in the day, you had to actually go to the library and read dozens of books till you found one obscure enough you could hope your lecturer hadn't read it. And then you had to copy it by hand.

Electronic resources have made plagiarism dead easy. It's a google search and a cut and paste away. As if any first year lecturer with a decent size enrolment, is going to check anything but the most obvious plagiarism.

 

[incentivation]

I think that universities offer to many courses in too many irrelevant fields, which could be adequately satisfied by majoring in a specific subject within a general degree. I mean, you can go through the list of courses available and the only thing that isn't on there is a Bachelor of How to Live.

There needs to be a shift. Universities need to refocus upon the core vocation specific courses whereby the attainment of the degree is the professional standard required to gain employment (i.e. Law, Medicine, Nursing, Teaching, Engineering, Business etc). Supplement these with a few general degrees such as Arts, Science and Social Science and eliminate the rest.

Other sectors of the economy, notably the trades, have suffered immensely since the days of Whitlam, when university education became perceived as a right.

The above changes should occur alongside the reintroduction of the Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme to assist those of lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

 

[Iron]

Plagiarism is a major force in undermining the value of a modern tertiary education. Back in the day, you had to actually go to the library and read dozens of books till you found one obscure enough you could hope your lecturer hadn't read it. And then you had to copy it by hand.

Electronic resources have made plagiarism dead easy. It's a google search and a cut and paste away. As if any first year lecturer with a decent size enrolment, is going to check anything but the most obvious plagiarism.

Law school is making us submit everything online this year. They just run it through their plagiarism programs

They also failed something like half of tax law last year because they used part of an LSS answer guide in an open-book exam

Such a record can prevent you from being admitted

So, er, uh, in that sense, theyve been trying to lift standards recently, though I assume that the only result will be more failures and subsequent pressure to not fail students so much

 

[whatashotbyseve]

Plagiarism is a major force in undermining the value of a modern tertiary education. Back in the day, you had to actually go to the library and read dozens of books till you found one obscure enough you could hope your lecturer hadn't read it. And then you had to copy it by hand.

Electronic resources have made plagiarism dead easy. It's a google search and a cut and paste away. As if any first year lecturer with a decent size enrolment, is going to check anything but the most obvious plagiarism.

I have to hand everything written via Turnitin.

I don't plagiarise, but I do use google books and scholar to read real texts online, and then quote and subsequently reference them. Marketing is such an evolving field that physical books alone just do not cut it anymore. A 2007 book is already two years out of date. Great advantage of google books and scholar is that it looks like you have read widely physically, but you haven't left your computer.

Turnitin has issues though. I handed in an assignment on Tuesday and the report said my assignment was 26% plagiarised. My major crimes were writing the questions verbatim in my report (how dare I!) and plagiarised statistics used in a (referenced) table (given their nature, you would hope that they were the same). This comprised in total maybe 5% of my word limit, yet the report spits out 26%. So for online plagiarism software to work, it requires tutors and lecturers to show proper discretion.