Notices by Ian Sudbery (iansudbery@genomic.social)

@inthehands

Perhaps. I tend to think of grades as being some sort of combination of Feedback , Motivation and Gatekeeping (probably in that order). Actually, I don't like grades for Feedback, so perhaps I should say assessment, rather than grades.

But for gatekeeping/ranking, the grade-granting institution can be the same as the applicant-evaluating one (if, for e.g. courses have limited capacity). Hopefully students are chosen on the basis of potential benefit to the student.

@inthehands

Hmmmm.... I can see that they *can* be in tension. But I also see that in some people's eyes, credibility relies on some people failing - that is exactly people's complaint about grade inflation.

Gatekeeping can also require ranking because there can be a limited number of spaces at the next level (be it a different module or a different program - e.g a PhD).

@inthehands Seems to me that some of these are more in tension with each other than others.

Are gatekeeping, ranking and credibility really in that much tension?