Written by Zhang Xilin (Associate Professor at the School of Marxism, Jiangnan University)
For a long time, the Grade Point Average (GPA) has been regarded as the evaluation indicator that determines the fate of university students. Whether it is for student awards, recommendation for postgraduate studies, civil service examinations, employment interviews, GPA has always been the key indicator reflecting students' abilities.However, recently, the School of Life Sciences at Peking University decided to abolish the GPA system and replace it with a grading system based on the percentage of high grades (A%) and good grades (AB%), which has attracted widespread attention and discussion in society.In fact, as early as 2015, Tsinghua University began to reform the evaluation method of student academic performance in order to reverse the utilitarian tendency brought by the GPA system. It aimed to address the issues of intense competition, excessive energy consumption, and excessive psychological pressure that hindered students' long-term development.When discussing the reform of the evaluation system for university students' academic performance, there are generally two different perspectives. One viewpoint believes that replacing the GPA system with a grading system will greatly relieve the pressure on students and allow them to shift their attention from minor score differences to the improvement of their overall qualities and abilities. The other viewpoint argues that the pressure on university students is closely related to the external economic situation and their own career development. Simply replacing the GPA system with a grading system cannot fundamentally solve the problem of intense competition among students.How should we judge this matter?"Judging Success Based on Test Scores"
Unable to Meet the Current Needs of Talent Development
In my opinion, whether it is the GPA system or the grading system, they are just means of evaluating students' academic performance, not the ultimate goal. The purpose of reforming the student evaluation system is to make the existing evaluation system more scientific and reasonable in judging students' learning performance, and to ensure that talent development meets the expectations of the nation and the people.In this process, the key lies not in simply "evaluating" the students' learning situation, but in reshaping the students' evaluation concept and breaking the tendency of evaluative training and instrumental rationality, so that students can truly become the subjects of survival and development.Therefore, we need to introduce the concept of "value-added evaluation" and promote innovative practices in enhancing students' knowledge, abilities, and character development based on the values of comprehensive growth in universities.Traditionally, universities often assess students' learning process and results through intuitive and measurable evaluation indicators and regular assessments, and determine students' grades based on these seemingly scientific assessment results. In this system, a difference of 0.1 point, 0.01 point, or even 0.001 point can become an important criterion for judging the level of students' abilities.However, at the same time, factors such as students' academic interests, creativity, emotional cognition, and other factors related to personal development are often selectively overlooked in evaluative systems centered on instrumental rationality.Admittedly, the GPA system, which emphasizes the achievement-oriented indicators and overall objectives, can effectively improve students' academic performance. In a certain historical period and social conditions, this system has sufficient value and rationality in improving the quality of higher education. However, for students in the new era, their personal development is actually influenced by various factors such as knowledge, abilities, character development, which we recognize as comprehensive development.From this perspective, the evaluation concept of "judging success based on test scores" embedded in the GPA system can no longer meet the requirements of the era and the nation for talent development. In comparison, the grading system, which is divided into different grades such as A, B, C, D, E, and has larger intervals for each grade, helps students pay more attention to self-realization and their own development needs, focuses more on the actual learning outcomes, and emphasizes comprehensive development. This, to a certain extent, embodies the concept of "value-added evaluation".
The Alienated Value Orientation Stifles the Potential for Diverse Development
Through practical experience and theoretical analysis, we can find that in the process of transitioning towards "value-added evaluation", the evaluation concepts for students often involve contradictions and tensions between results and processes, quantity and quality, external intervention and internal interests. Whether it is the GPA system or the grading system, these relationships need to be well addressed, otherwise it will directly affect students' comprehensive growth through academic evaluation.On the one hand, with the introduction of an audit culture into higher education, universities must respond to social accountability and actively enhance their appeal in the consumer evaluation discourse system, and this value orientation and sense of urgency will naturally extend to the evaluation of students' academic performance.Specifically, the GPA evaluation system establishes a new evaluative power model through strengthening evaluation and reward mechanisms, implementing hierarchical, classified, and cyclic evaluation, promoting multi-department collaboration, and utilizing information technology to collect and integrate various academic performance information of students.In this model, administrative managers, teachers, parents, and even peers who are the evaluative subjects of students often do not directly use coercive measures, but through coordination, guidance, encouragement, and other methods, they exert influence on students' learning paths, study behaviors, and attitudes towards evaluations, striving to stimulate students' enthusiasm for learning and self-improvement.However, due to a series of factors such as the homogenization of evaluation standards, the distortion of evaluation values, and the misuse of evaluation tools, the GPA system or the grading system may fail to truly promote the comprehensive growth of students, and even lead to the alienation of their development orientation.Therefore, in the process of student evaluation reform, it is necessary to continuously improve the evaluation system, establish a scientific evaluation concept, and promote the overall development and value-added growth of students.
Reference:
张曦琳（江南大学马克思主义学院副教授）：等级制背后的价值选择与伦理思考，《百家号》。Available at: https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1687315341371627344
