Marking bias at university.

I am doing a Politics degree as of September and, upon working my way through the preliminary reading list, something occurred to me. Are essays submitted to lecturers subject to personal bias, or do they maintain a level of impartiality?

Obviously it can be difficult to completely set aside personal opinions, but could my essay potentially suffer purely because my marker is ideologically opposed to what I'm arguing?

Reply 1

TheOneWho

12

As long as you make a good argument for your point then it should be marked fairly objectively.

Reply 2

#1Genius

OP

12

TheOneWho

As long as you make a good argument for your point then it should be marked fairly objectively.

So you can't lose out merely for expressing a point of view in direct contradiction to the Tutor's?

Reply 3

TheOneWho

12

University is all about independent thought. If you disagree with the marker then you disagree. As long as you can argue your point well then they will give you the marks for it.

Reply 4

#1Genius

OP

12

TheOneWho

University is all about independent thought. If you disagree with the marker then you disagree. As long as you can argue your point well then they will give you the marks for it.

Thanks

Reply 5

jinglepupskye

14

#1Genius

I am doing a Politics degree as of September and, upon working my way through the preliminary reading list, something occurred to me. Are essays submitted to lecturers subject to personal bias, or do they maintain a level of impartiality?

Obviously it can be difficult to completely set aside personal opinions, but could my essay potentially suffer purely because my marker is ideologically opposed to what I'm arguing?

All assessment is subjective. The lecturer's opinion of your point of view and their opinion of you as a person will all come into the marking of your work. It would be naive to claim anything else.

Reply 6

#1Genius

OP

12

jinglepupskye

All assessment is subjective. The lecturer's opinion of your point of view and their opinion of you as a person will all come into the marking of your work. It would be naive to claim anything else.

This was my initial presumption, prompting me to start this thread. I'm quite concerned at the prospect of marking being so anti-meritocratic, because it seems unfair that a well-argued essay should miss out because of another person's inability to credit work dispassionately.

Reply 7

Kitty Pimms

17

#1Genius

So you can't lose out merely for expressing a point of view in direct contradiction to the Tutor's?

Very unlikely. However, if you know the lecturer well, it can be a bonus to directly address their own epistemological biases in an essay, whether your stance is positive or negative. In my experience that tends to earn you brownie points.

(FWIW I'm a politics graduate).

Reply 8

jinglepupskye

14

#1Genius

This was my initial presumption, prompting me to start this thread. I'm quite concerned at the prospect of marking being so anti-meritocratic, because it seems unfair that a well-argued essay should miss out because of another person's inability to credit work dispassionately.

The answer is in your own hands.

You need to study the person who is doing the marking. What are their favourite topics and what are their opinions?

It's a bit stupid to shoot yourself in the foot by arguing that black is white when the marker thinks that black is green. Look on it as gaining experience in viewing both sides of the subject to give a dispassionate summing up even if it doesn't reflect your own views.

In any case, in the majority of situations the marker is interested in the facts, rather than your opinion of why black is white.

I'm all for being unique and having convictions, which perhaps other people don't share, but at the end of the day they hold the upper hand and you need to acknowledge that in order to gain a good class of degree.

Reply 9

ChemistBoy

16

EierVonSatan

The essay's that I did during my degree, were marked by two lecturers and their marks averaged to give you your grade. Furthermore, if their individual gradings were outside 10% of the other markers then you could ask for a remark by a third :smile:

Science is nice like that.

Reply 10

lucho22

13

#1Genius

I am doing a Politics degree as of September and, upon working my way through the preliminary reading list, something occurred to me. Are essays submitted to lecturers subject to personal bias, or do they maintain a level of impartiality?

Obviously it can be difficult to completely set aside personal opinions, but could my essay potentially suffer purely because my marker is ideologically opposed to what I'm arguing?

At St Andrews most schools require you to anonymise (simply put student number on the top instead of name) assessed work - in practice the lecturers can probably guess who wrote what (due to topic and writing style) - but I suppose it helps.

Reply 11

lazza

15

I've found that the marking on our degree is incredibly biased. Our first year tutor took a disliking to several of us and failed us on several modules (now resat, and remarked by of course her..). When other tutors were marking our work however we were getting higher grades.

The thing we found most unfair about this is that the rest of our university runs an anonymous marking scheme, whereas for us, the way we submit our work apparently means we can't. Also having such close contact with the markers every day means they know who belongs with what

Reply 12

Rolpoly

1

My first degree as told by my classmate my grades hen I ent in to look my final grades ere changed, also in my class I ould get 66% my classmates were 68% and 70%, and yes it is personal an opinion its been suggested that the best argument, is then used by lecturers in their own research. When you're a student you are powerless to oppose the system as there are favourites and students who do ell enough to pass. Also, students from overseas ill always are looked after better than homegrown students, that a fact whether choose accept or not. As for TheOnewho work should be marked fairly and objectively agreed, however, that depends on the lecturer in question ie you put points across other will never accept, your argument due to personality clash.

Reply 13

Rolpoly

1

Original post by lazza

I've found that the marking on our degree is incredibly biased. Our first year tutor took a disliking to several of us and failed us on several modules (now resat, and remarked by of course her..). When other tutors were marking our work however we were getting higher grades.

The thing we found most unfair about this is that the rest of our university runs an anonymous marking scheme, whereas for us, the way we submit our work apparently means we can't. Also having such close contact with the markers every day means they know who belongs with what

This behaviour is not unusual at all.

Marking bias at university.

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