Thread: pass or fail?

25% of the class failed a course. Is this surprisingly high? I would've expected people to withdraw if they were going to fail. Is it a sign of a good teacher if the marks fit a bell shaped curve, because this class had a curve that looked like a w.

Originally Posted by Jskid

Is it a sign of a good teacher if the marks fit a bell shaped curve, because this class had a curve that looked like a w.

How many students were there? What was the course? Has it experienced a similar failure rate in the past?

Originally Posted by pickslides

How many students were there? What was the course? Has it experienced a similar failure rate in the past?

It was a comp sci. There was about 50 students to begin with and by the end there were 30.

Just because there is a large (enough) amount (more than 30) students doesn't mean the distribution of results should form a bell curve.

So many factors are at work here, was it an advanced course? has the course changed? is it a new course? Does it have a new lecturer?

I think the historical failure rate is the best place to start with these type of things.

Were you one of the 25% that failed Jskid?

Originally Posted by pickslides

Just because there is a large (enough) amount (more than 30) students doesn't mean the distribution of results should form a bell curve.

So many factors are at work here, was it an advanced course? has the course changed? is it a new course? Does it have a new lecturer?

I think the historical failure rate is the best place to start with these type of things.

Were you one of the 25% that failed Jskid?

2nd year course. No. No. No. No. I don't think the fact that 25% of the class failed makes her a bad teacher, however the way she explained things makes her a bad teacher. I've never considered what percentage of a class fails and the person who told me that 25% did made it sound really uprising.

Consider an international level. What percentage of candidates achieved a pass grade? It's easy to obtain this information, certainly where I'm from.

50% failure rate is pretty much the norm for the courses I take. I've had courses where the failure rate was 95% with over 200 students taking the exam. We use a fixed grading system though.

Originally Posted by Ridley

50% failure rate is pretty much the norm for the courses I take. I've had courses where the failure rate was 95% with over 200 students taking the exam. We use a fixed grading system though.

Were students allowed to drop the course?

25% or even 50% failing a course is nothing new. And if you're in computing, you'll probably see heck of a lot more failing. Some classes just are for the very geniuses. But by the looks of it, your lecturer wasn't much of a teacher anyway...

The failure rate is from final examinations and only those students that actually handed in something are counted, so the number of people who "fail" courses is much higher. My university allows you to take final examinations (there are usually two occasions per year for a course) as many times as you want though (as long as the course is not discontinued), so you can't really fail a course; you simply won't get a grade until you have passed the course.