The Effect of Using Relative and Absolute Criteria to Decide Students’ Passing or Failing a Course

Abstract

In the formation education that is carried out within the scope of undergraduate and non-thesis graduate programs within the same university, different criteria are used to evaluate students’ success.  In this study, classification accuracy of letter grades that are generated to evaluate students’ success using relative and absolute criteria and decisions for students’ passing or failing a course were examined. Within the scope of this study, it was also intended to determine the cut-off point required for students to pass a course. In this regard, midterm and final grades of a total of 141 students. First, correct classification percentages of the letter grades that the students scored with absolute and relative evaluations were calculated. Then, classification percentages for decisions regarding passing or failing a course were examined. Then, a cut-off point that decisions for students’ passing or failing a course will be based on was determined using cluster analysis. At the end of the study, it was determined that the relative criterion provided a more accurate classification than the absolute criterion in determining letter grades, whereas the absolute criterion provided a more accurate classification in decisions for students’ passing or failing courses. The relative criterion was found to have provided more benefits to students than the absolute criterion both in terms of letter grading and decision making process for students' passing a course. It was determined that the cut-off points required to decide students’ passing a course is more parallel to the absolute criterion.