Grade Expectations

Abstract

University students attending large introductory psychology classes reported their motivations and goals regarding preferences for course requirements and evaluation methods. Overall, students had expectations that were sometimes contradictory across preferences, were different across subgroups, and were unlikely to be compatible with faculty goals. Women preferred more opportunities for evaluation and desired to have less weight placed on each evaluation event. Women also preferred a grade distribution with a preponderance of higher grades, as did men who endorsed a performance goal. Only men who endorsed mastery goals preferred a truly normal grade distribution. On ratings of the weightings preferred for effort and for mastery, younger students wanted more weight placed on effort than did older students, and students with a mastery goal wanted less weight placed on effort than did those with a performance goal.