alt Hacker NewsThe stated reason for doing this seems suspicious. A pass/fail dynamic would likely maintain student anxiety, if not increase it.
What I think is more likely is that this move will help them hire less qualified teachers and reduce administrative oversight as now they no longer have to worry about all the issues that come with grading, such as consistency, or the grades accurately reflecting performance. The quality of curriculum will likely drop significantly and this will be reflected in the student’s second year grades.
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Hire less qualified teachers, move to even larger class sizes with less support, and move more teachers into administrative roles, furthering the decline of education.
So MIT has been hiring worse professors for the last 20+ years?
> A pass/fail dynamic would likely maintain student anxiety, if not increase it.
Pass/fail means that whatever was a C before is going to be passing now. It lowers expectations compared to the previous grading scheme (in that a C no longer has a serious impact on your GPA, you still pass). If the majority of the students are getting a C or better, the majority of students would get a passing mark.
The pass fail dynamic won't increase anxiety if you tell everyone to not fail students, though.
> A pass/fail dynamic would likely maintain student anxiety, if not increase it.
it will increase it because in pass/fail classes i have had you do not know if you're passing or failing until the final grade/result. With a grade average you know how far you are from failing but without it you have no idea. Maybe they keep the grading the same but whatever you end up with doesn't affect your GPA (good or bad), I can see that reducing anxiety. However, the students are going to be in for a shock the next semester when it's assumed they learned everything they should have first semester and class takes off from there.