"Do Our Answers Have to Be Correct to Get Full Credit?"

[smallcleanrat]

Spring term classes started this week. I'm TA'ing for a gen ed course covering topics connecting science and the arts. So the class is mostly freshmen and there is a mix of students thinking of pursuing performing arts-related majors and students interested in science-related majors.

The professor scrapped the planned midterms and final as part of adapting the course to be completely online. Grades will instead be determined from weekly homework assignments and a term paper.

Several students asked whether their answers to the homework questions had to be accurate in order to get full credit ("or do we only need to make some kind of effort?"). Professor's answer is that the answers need to be correct.

Is it common for courses (perhaps more common in lower division courses?) to assign homework in which the quality of the answers the student submits don't matter at all? I can't recall having any such class as an undergrad. Is this more common in particular fields of study?

[mamselle]

Not in my French or art history classes.

I allow a re-write of French homework, with an explanation of the error made/correct rule to follow, for 1/2 pt additional credit per question (assiduous students doing all the corrections have brought their grades up 1 letter in some cases, so it's worth it....plus, ahem, they start to learn the rules they need to know for the exam...).

No re-write, no grade change.

In art history, I do something similar on short essays/critical analyses papers; I'll also go over their scaffolded work, rung by rung, for corrections to the next step up (but woe betide those who ignore the corrections...one young woman sat with me for an hour, watched me mark the paper while telling her each reason for each markup, then turned the same draft in for the final paper--with maybe 3 of the 20 or so corrections I'd given her...so, that paper didn't pass...)

Kids have become scarily good at negotiating expectations downwards, and I find I have to be on my guard for their jovial little, innocent-seeming remarks, all the time.

My music students--some as young as 5 or 6, will say things like, "but I only have to do the first half of the page of note identifications, right?"

Wrong. You need to do them all! (Said with a knowing smile...)

I suspect they overhear older brothers or sisters trying these gambits out on their parents....or their parents on their boss, on the phone, or something.

They're much more audacious about it than I ever knew to be...sometimes I (secretly) admire the agility of their scheming little brains...

But I hold the line, for both our sakes.

M.

[eigen]

Moderately common in my science discipline to have homework graded on completion/effort.

Sometimes it's an "Ill grade one randomly" thing, but mostly it's just "did you do it and make a reasonable effort".

A lot of the learning comes from trying things, and then seeing what you did right/wrong, and I find my students take to that more when they don't feel like they're getting penalized for the practice part of things. The idea is for them to take what they've (hopefully) gotten better at and show me that on exams.

[marshwiggle]

Moderately common in my science discipline to have homework graded on completion/effort.

Sometimes it's an "Ill grade one randomly" thing, but mostly it's just "did you do it and make a reasonable effort".

A lot of the learning comes from trying things, and then seeing what you did right/wrong, and I find my students take to that more when they don't feel like they're getting penalized for the practice part of things. The idea is for them to take what they've (hopefully) gotten better at and show me that on exams.

I'm guessing in this case the weight of the assignments is pretty low relative to the exams, for that reason.

[Caracal]

Is it common for courses (perhaps more common in lower division courses?) to assign homework in which the quality of the answers the student submits don't matter at all? I can't recall having any such class as an undergrad. Is this more common in particular fields of study?

I used to assign reading responses in my history class. The point was to just get the students to at least open up the reading and engage with it. I would occasionally have response papers where a student obviously did read the thing, but completely misunderstood what was going on. They would think that the person in a primary source was arguing the exact opposite of what they were actually arguing, or they thought a secondary source was arguing for some position that they were just discussing in a historical context. I still gave full credit if they did the reading. The point of doing the reading outside of class was so we could discuss it in class. Part of the point of the in class discussion is to figure out how to understand the reading.

These response papers were a small portion of the overall grade and if you were still not showing an ability to understand them when the exams came, that would be a problem.

[polly_mer]

Moderately common in my science discipline to have homework graded on completion/effort.

Sometimes it's an "Ill grade one randomly" thing, but mostly it's just "did you do it and make a reasonable effort".

A lot of the learning comes from trying things, and then seeing what you did right/wrong, and I find my students take to that more when they don't feel like they're getting penalized for the practice part of things. The idea is for them to take what they've (hopefully) gotten better at and show me that on exams.

I'm guessing in this case the weight of the assignments is pretty low relative to the exams, for that reason.

Yes, the whole point is for students to practice.  I had answers available to the students to check their own work and just graded submitted/not.

As a student, I had many undergrad classes where homework was assigned for student's own benefit with the answer keys available in the library and no homework grade at all.  Tests were the whole grade; attendance was also completely up to the student.  The idea was either a student wanted to learn or a place in the program would be freed up by someone who failed out.

Professors were professing for those who want to learn.  Those who don't want to learn are weeded pretty early in this system.

[smallcleanrat]

Moderately common in my science discipline to have homework graded on completion/effort.

Sometimes it's an "Ill grade one randomly" thing, but mostly it's just "did you do it and make a reasonable effort".

A lot of the learning comes from trying things, and then seeing what you did right/wrong, and I find my students take to that more when they don't feel like they're getting penalized for the practice part of things. The idea is for them to take what they've (hopefully) gotten better at and show me that on exams.

I'm guessing in this case the weight of the assignments is pretty low relative to the exams, for that reason.

Yes, the whole point is for students to practice.  I had answers available to the students to check their own work and just graded submitted/not.

As a student, I had many undergrad classes where homework was assigned for student's own benefit with the answer keys available in the library and no homework grade at all.  Tests were the whole grade; attendance was also completely up to the student.  The idea was either a student wanted to learn or a place in the program would be freed up by someone who failed out.

Professors were professing for those who want to learn.  Those who don't want to learn are weeded pretty early in this system.

Yes, I had some classes where the homework was for practice and then an answer key made available. You could go to office hours for help if you didn't understand the solution, but those problem sets were not turned in or graded.

This term's course will have no exams, so the homework is going to be a major way we gauge whether students are learning the material.

When the professor said accuracy of answer counts one of the students remarked, "Yikes. That's scary!" with several others chiming in to agree.

It sort of gave me the impression that this was not the norm for many of the students.

I would have found this situation less scary as an undergrad. Students are allowed to work together on homework. They have ample time to contact TAs and the professor for help. This is rarely true for exams.

[ciao_yall]

Did you demonstrate that you did the reading and thought about it?

Boom, full credit... even if you didn't really understand the reading, or I disagree with your interpretation.

[smallcleanrat]

Did you demonstrate that you did the reading and thought about it?

Boom, full credit... even if you didn't really understand the reading, or I disagree with your interpretation.

What kind of answer would not qualify for full credit?

If an answer is far off the mark, how can you tell whether it was because the student genuinely tried but was very confused or because they scribbled something down at the last minute without bothering to think?

[kiana]

I still remember a complaint I got as a grad school TA. Someone appealed to my supervising teacher because "The other times I took this class our homework was only graded on completion."

[marshwiggle]

As a student, I had many undergrad classes where homework was assigned for student's own benefit with the answer keys available in the library and no homework grade at all. 

My first year chemistry assignments and tutorials were like that. I never did one assignment or attended one tutorial in a full year course. I still wound up with an A-, but I probably would have done better if the assignments had been worth something.

Tests were the whole grade; attendance was also completely up to the student.  The idea was either a student wanted to learn or a place in the program would be freed up by someone who failed out.

I've always had a sense that this was more dictated by

• saving time and money for grading
• not having to worry about students collaborating

In other words, not some sort of "high academic principles", but simple cost and logistics.

[ciao_yall]

Did you demonstrate that you did the reading and thought about it?

Boom, full credit... even if you didn't really understand the reading, or I disagree with your interpretation.

What kind of answer would not qualify for full credit?

If an answer is far off the mark, how can you tell whether it was because the student genuinely tried but was very confused or because they scribbled something down at the last minute without bothering to think?

The student assignment was to take a real-life example and tie it to one of the concepts in the reading. I would also give them prompts. So, even if they didn't quite understand the theory, but it was a good example and generally fit, they were fine.

The only time I would get really annoyed is if they clearly bs'd something based on a word in the PPT because it was a general dictionary definition instead of within the context of the lesson.

[Parasaurolophus]

For formal work, I give partial credit for partially correct work. That's why they have to show their work. For non-formal short answer, it depends on how many points are allotted. But usually, yes, a partial answer gets equivalent partial credit.

Otherwise... for essays, a good-faith effort that respects my instructions usually gets a bare pass. And they can rewrite their essays. But that's about as far as I go.

[doc700]

I teach an intro physics course although most of the students are prospective majors.

We grade the homework on whether it is "correct."  There is a lot of partial credit for performing individual steps correctly and little credit for the final answer.  In that sense, its not important that the answer is correct but is important that you have correctly drawn a diagram or correctly used a certain equation etc.  There are also points for showing your work so even if the final number is right but there is no explanation, the student would not early full credit. 

If no steps were even correct but there was a lot of writing that was entirely wrong that wouldn't earn points.  As other posters have pointed out, that would be rare.  The students are given unlimited time + a lot of office hours to talk to the TAs and time to talk to each other.  Homework grades tend to universally be very high.  Exams are where you find out what they actually know.

[the_geneticist]

I'd say it depends on the goals of the assignment.
As an undergraduate at a SLAC, my professors gave us a lot of "practice problems/homework".  Some classes had it due as a formal assignment and graded for correctness.  Others would grade a selection of the questions.  Others gave points for turning it in (aka completion).  But most didn't give any points for homework at all.  The idea was that we needed to learn for ourselves how much practice we needed.
If your students aren't internally motivated, prepared, & ready to be independent, then it makes sense to have homework that is graded for correctness.
If your students are ready for more independence, then you can give practice problems, but not necessarily give it for points.
The choice is yours.  Just be clear and consistent.