About this episode

Nat Malkus discusses Harvard's new grade inflation policy with Scott Duke Kominers, exploring the implications of grading systems on student incentives and learning.

Recently, Harvard faculty voted to push back on grade inflation at the institution by capping the proportion of A’s given to students at 20%. But according to a new paper, Harvard’s new policy—and grade caps in general—are not the right solution. In What Does a Grade Mean? Informativeness and Strategic Manipulation of Grading Systems , Scott Duke Kominers and Joshua S. Gans argue that to create better incentives for students and faculty, we need to change the current grading system itself. On this episode of The Report Card , Nat Malkus speaks with Scott Duke Kominers about Harvard’s new grade inflation policy. Nat and Scott discuss grading at Harvard, how traditional grading creates bad incentives for students, why grade caps might make these incentives worse, the importance of communicating information about course difficulty, how a different grading system can create better incentives and lead to more learning, and more. Scott Duke Kominers is the Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School; a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard Department of Economics and the Harvard Center of Mathematical Sciences and…

People in this episode

Host: Nat Malkus

Guest: Scott Duke Kominers

Topics covered

• grade inflation
• Harvard grading policy
• incentives in education
• grading systems
• student learning

Keywords

• grade inflation
• Harvard
• grading policy
• student incentives
• education reform

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Harvard Business School, Harvard Department of Economics, Harvard Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications, a16z

Books & works: What Does a Grade Mean? Informativeness and Strategic Manipulation of Grading Systems

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