This screams “corruption”. Knowing that students will be looking at how you grade their paper, and will be comparing how you grade them with how you grade others provides professors with some incentives to be honest and careful in grading.
I’m surprised students put up with it, but they don’t know anything different. They hear about US students who argue every single grade but I don’t think they realise such students actually exist.
However I’m really happy to be away from my first (US) academic post where I constantly faced pressure from an athletic department to “relax” on grades or overlook “minor problems” from athlete-students. Post exam argumentation from individual students is easy enough to deal with reasonably and honestly, institutional forces are another beast entirely.
This screams “corruption”. Knowing that students will be looking at how you grade their paper, and will be comparing how you grade them with how you grade others provides professors with some incentives to be honest and careful in grading.
I’m surprised students put up with it, but they don’t know anything different. They hear about US students who argue every single grade but I don’t think they realise such students actually exist.
However I’m really happy to be away from my first (US) academic post where I constantly faced pressure from an athletic department to “relax” on grades or overlook “minor problems” from athlete-students. Post exam argumentation from individual students is easy enough to deal with reasonably and honestly, institutional forces are another beast entirely.