The Student Room Group

Just want to rant

So ive finally finished a Masters Degree in International Businesses Management and Finance. Achieving a Merit grade which im fine with.

I just want to rant a bit about assignments and individual papers and the inconsistencies in marking and other bits feel free to completely ignore this.

Ill start with the obvious stuff such as layout, referencing etc etc. It makes up about 10% of the marks on any given paper so its not a big deal but I still feel it should be less random. I have used the exact same layout and structure for every paper I have written for the course around 16 in total. I found a style I liked based on acceptable academic conventions and creates a template to use every time I need to write a report or paper of some kind. I used words inbuilt referencing with APA so my references are 100% identical in layout and structure every time. So given this how can my marks given on a rubric be so varied across units and tutors, with my highest being 90% on this aspect and my lowest being 40%. The layout is either good or bad, it conforms to conventions or it does not, the referencing is organised, scripted correctly or it is not. How can one tutor find it acceptable another great and another unsatisfactory. I was even told my referencing was badly layed out in one assignment, well actually its not my layout its MS words layout and its been good enough for everyone else you picky [insert insult here].

Next it the mark/rubric. At our uni they use a rubric which breaks down the paper into individual aspects, then a final grade is given based on these. Something similar has happened on three different papers but ill choose one as an example. My rubric showed 4/5 sections in 50-59% and 1 section in 60-69% the grade I was given was 48/100 or 48%. Now 50% is the pass requirement, so i have according to this both passed and failed simultaneously. I queried this and initially was given a response indicating that it just works like this sometimes, I then went to head of department and queried the failed logic and the grade was changed.

Next is the papers brief in regards to the feedback I received. In one assignment in particular was a reflective piece (a pointless load of bull imo) regarding an earlier group project the brief asked for a self reflection on "group leadership processes, managing decision making within the group, managing conflict, managing cultural diversity, group role allocation, group communication methods and personal input". The feedback I received was "A good attempt overall with good reflection on the various group processors and individual input. However no consideration has been made as to how this might impact international manager in other cultures". Now im not being funny but if the requirements had stated "also consider how this might impact intentional management in other cultures" I would have considered how it impacted international managers in other cultures. Neither the rubric or the brief showed any requirement of this kind and as a result i did not do it and yet was marked down because of it.

Next is +/- word counts holy crap do I hate these. They require a word count in-between a set amount by 10% in my case for example "assignment should be 4500 words +/- 10%". It works to stop mindless word vomiting but depending on your style of writing (in my case direct to the point write as few words as possible) it just makes me write extra crap I don't need and it has been mentioned in feedback on 2 different occasions so its like OK great what am i supposed to do i already got a distinction for the work but would fail if I chopped out all the junk bits.

Overall my assignments have been an absolute mixed bag of results from 88% to 40%. How one person writing in the same style with the same work and thought process can produce such varied marks is baffling to me.

Give me exams any day, at least then its what I know and dont know as opposed to how well i conform to a particular individuals interpretations of the conventions, literature and whatever else.

I needed that.

/Rant
(edited 6 years ago)

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