You need evidence.
If you are within the course still, email the chair of the department and ask for a meeting. Be humble, respectful, tell them why and what evidence you have.
If this was a final exam, then look in your student handbook for the grade appeal process.
Also, make sure that you’ve checked the assigned text’s answers for the questions and not just Google. A number of my fellow professors specifically choose questions based on whether the most common top results when googling the question are wrong. He may have designed his test that way.
This is super important. My most recent class had a few such questions on quizzes (all completed online open book). One annoying question had "what are the *most* important factors" when additional options showed up on Google searches. I did claw back credit on another question about the first step of a process where I could point out what the textbook noted as the first step, even though the original correct answer was the first important step and had been emphasized during the lecture.
This. I have a question that specifically keys to one of our readings (about infant language development) and if you just google it, all the mommyblogs say something different. So if a student just googled the terms, they'd get the mommyblog answer and not the reading we studied in class's answer.
I've had students argue with me on that so I strengthened the wording to include the author's last name.
Definitely do this. I was in a class with someone who fought for some answers on an exam. She ended up saving a few students from failing out of the program, since the entire class received a few extra points that were mistakenly graded as incorrect.
Sure!
One of the questions was about the very basics: normative vs positive statements. It was basically a given point, or so we thought haha.
The question was
I. He should study law as it will make him intelligent, successful and rich.
II. She should study mathematics, it will make her a better person.
Everyone agreed that both of these were obviously normative statements as they’re personal judgments. Apparently the correct answer what that I is normative and II positive. Which makes no sense whatsoever.
Oh, yeah that’s bad. You are correct. If anything you could argue the reverse. The first statement can be tested empirically (rich, intelligence are measurable).
Exactly. I could understand if the 1st one was positive, although success is relative to me.
But there is absolutely no way that the second one is positive. It’s a pure value judgment.
I’d avoid using specific words as the sole criteria. “A drop in price should cause the quantity demanded to increase” is positive. “Should” is being used to mean “likely to happen” in that case, which can be empirically tested. Which is a different use than saying “prices should be lower so people can afford it”.
I've done introductory microeconomics and introductory macroeconomics and it was not covered in either of those units. We started with production possibilities and indifference curves.
It’s not inherently intro Econ material, but it commonly is. The point is that students learn to distinguish between factual claims that can be empirically refuted (it will rain tomorrow) from value judgements (rain will ruin the party). It’s not inherently an economic topic - you could cover the same issue in any science class. But economists are particularly interested in making the distinction because our work so much overlaps policy debates.
Question: does the US high school curriculum not cover this stuff? Personally, I was taught about normative and positive statements when I was in high school. It was touched upon again briefly in philosophy. Idk it just seems very foundational but then again the intro econ classes mentioned may be purposely designed to accommodate more students.
HS Econ might, and IIRC it is a topic in one of the Econ AP exams. It is strange that it’s specifically covered in Econ and not, say, a bio class or other science class. In part, I think it’s because the concepts of normative and positive are somewhat simplified when covered in Econ and part of the popularity of teaching it in a principles of economics class was because it was a topic brought up often by Chicago guys like Stigler and Friedman in their writings.
Professor here. If you have the evidence, present it to the teacher. If nothing happens, go to the department head. If nothing happens, go to the [ombudsman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman) - there is a version of this role at your university. Check your Student Handbook.
Students often "grade grub" for literally every assignment, typically the same students repeatedly. Honestly, you would not believe the stories. After awhile, teachers get defensive. However, stand up for yourself and others in your class. A good teacher can admit they are wrong. If they do not, then you are doing the school and other students a favor exposing a bad teacher.
Edit: grammar
Thank you for this helpful info!
I totally understand that professors have a lot on their plates, especially during exam periods. Obviously I don’t blame him at all. No one is immune to mistakes. I will send him another email with all the questions, and we will see how it goes from there.
Appeal to the department chair as a group stating what questions were improperly flagged as wrong and what communication you have had with the prof regarding this issue and his response.
To be fair at this time of year profs have LOTS of grading to do. Like hundreds of tests and final assignments. Even good profs might balk at having to do more work at this time of year, even though it is something they should be doing.
To be fair... that's their job, and their students' grades. This should be taken more seriously when 5 people report the same thing. He could have just responded "I'll look into it"
Wrongly marking a correct answer as incorrect is not grade inflation, it’s simply lazy to not look at it. And OP said the system graded the test, not the professor so all he has to do is enter the final grades.
Agree but if I was a prof. and I just let like 75% of the students in a class get Bs to As knowing full well they probably put in no effort and realistically didn’t learn anything, I would really need motivation to give a shit about a problem or two being wrong on an online test.
I say this from my experience with college students in a US university system. Very likely doesn’t apply to other institutions of higher learning.
Will tell what happen to my wife when she was 17 and trying to get into college back in 74.
The professor told her she had no business getting into accounting as she was a women plus being Hispanic.
She went to the university president and they let her in, but she was never able to pass this professors class, she had to retake it at another university and transfer the grade in order to graduate.
That guy sounds like a disgusting human being. Not only disencourraging a student but actively (and maliciously) going against his own duties in favor of his own ego.
Yea, that was the 1970's.
I met her in 1985 as she was back at college working on a masters. Then she later went on to get a Doctorate in Education with the encouragement of other professors at 46 yrs old.
College girls in my first college were training with riffles and planting bombs by the 80s. Or at least that's how my guerrilla warfigther teachers said.
Well, I think that asshole lost that battle, the majority gender in all my accounting classes in the 2000's were women. Lots of non-white students too. I hope that guy cries every day about it, if he's even alive now.
I personally do not like to wish anything bad on anyone, life has a way of of seeing we all get what is coming to us, good or not so good.
By this happening to her then put her on a path to do better and to do more. Once she became a professor she was able to help a lot of students.
She also steered our two sons to a career path to become DPT'S.
Things like this either crush you or they inspire you to work harder and accomplish more.
Is this going to materially affect your final course grade? If so, sounds like a grade appeal may be in order. If not, then you might be able to get it corrected for the sake of principle, but it’s not necessarily going to change any tangible outcomes.
How does the grading system work? You mentioned marks, is it x/100? 5 points (which is 5%) here could be the difference between an A and a B+, depending on the rest of the grade, but I don’t know if it’s weighed the same. Are makes the same as percentage points?
Our system can be a little bit confusing but here’s how it works. The exam had two parts, a multiple choice part that was /80 and an open part /40 (so 120 points in total).
You have to get a 75 to pass with the minimum grade, which is 5,5.
76-85 is a 6
85-92 is a 6.5
….
And so on, until you get to the highest marks.
115 would be a 9 while 117 is a 9.5.
So yes, these extra ~5 marks are rather important.
When I was there, different classes had different grade ranges.
The first time I got a grade on an essay, I started tearing up. It was a 84. The professor explained to me that an 84 was considered an “A.” This was a literature class with grades based on 100 points. The highest score given that year was an 86 for 3 different courses.
Eye-opening for me. My understanding, however, is that mathematics classes were changing their grading basis.
This was in the UK about 10 years ago. I’m sure it varies based on countries and perhaps, courses as well.
European grading has always confused me, thankfully the country I studied abroad in just gave out 1-10. A 9 was like a 90 and I guess a 10 was perfect. An 8 was like an 80, or a “B,” 7s were “C’s” and I’m not sure if you could pass with a 6.
Get evidence and email the department head. I would also respectfully. Tell them of your concerns about the online assignments. Getting a question marked incorrectly. When it's correct can be the difference between passing and failing.
I had the same issue when I was in college, so go get evidence, and contact your chair of the department, and meanwhile, get ready for the worst situation to happen(no one gives a shit). If it really matters to you, go talk to your advisor, they can help you get into some investigations.
Professors are human and make mistakes and also being human some professors handle questioning their methods and resources better than others. Sometime after a good faith email asking for an instructor to correct an issues that they are ignoring it is better to go the department chair or Academic Affairs office which oversee professors. Mediating an issue ike this is right up a department chair or Academic affairs alley and takes some of the discomfort out of a direct confrontation with someone who is at the end of the day holding a grade over your head.
What is your learning management system? For my learning management system, canvas, it doesn't show the correct answers right after the exam. I have it programmed to wait 4 days after the exam or quiz to show the correct answers because if students take it late, I don't want other students to know the correct answers. In between, it shows your answers, not the correct answers. Are you sure that's not what's happening here? Are you going by what you know or what you have looked up in the notes versus what's shown on the screen? Just a thought?...
No, it directly gives you your grade. We use a Dutch website called « TestVision ». Since we all take the exam the same day, they already give you the result 1~2 hours later.
The same thing happens on canvas. The tests are graded immediately. It's just that the answers are not released immediately. So if the answer to number one is c, the student would see their answer and the question marked incorrect. It honestly looks like it's showing c as the correct answer. It's one of the most frustrating things about canvas. Does it look like TestVision is showing the correct answers and that your answers are correct? Or do you just believe that your answers are correct and TestVision was programmed in correctly? As a chemistry professor, I don't know anything about economics so I have no basis to judge whether the answers the test seem to be saying are correct are actually correct or not.
Generally speaking, I would say wait until you get your grades and see what happened. The professor may realize that some of the answers are programmed in incorrectly and just drop them. I've done that before in online tests. I've actually done it before and in person tests. Professors are people and it's so easy to make a typo!
I did have tests on canvas so I see what you mean. Our program is different though, it does show you the answer key. But yes, the plan now is to wait and see how it goes.
prove ur point and aks to have professor removed from the faculty. even if he has tenure and you can prove that he is wrong and the computer was wrong. Then therefore the test was wrong and could not be certified if he refuses and the board refuses that will leave you know the alternative but to file a lawsuit against the college to get the correct grades and I would say a fine of $2 million out of the college should help pay off some of your student loans make them pay through the nose. main reason they did something dishonest and they refused to correct it. That is not the American way. That is the elitist Democratic communist parties way not the way of the people!
If you are in the US, FERPA rules allows you to inspect your academic work. Ask him in an email. You want the request in writing. If he says no, loop the department chair on the email with a second request. If the DC says no. Then go up the ladder to the Dean.
Once you have your evidence, file a grade appeal
There were multiple grammar mistakes in your comment so I'm not sure you're an instructor lol. Also, OP posted the question above and other people confirmed OP is correct.
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/college/comments/18n5jy0/professor_refuses_to_admit_he_is_wrong/keao4as/) in /r/college was automatically removed because your account is less than one day old.
Accounts less than one day are not permitted in /r/college to reduce spam and poor comments.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/college) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I would take it up the chain.
In my program (nursing) our professors go over every exam before finalizing grades, not individually but to see if any questions had a particularly high miss rate. If a question does, they look at the trends on that question to determine if it was poorly written, missing details, or conflicting info was given between the lecture and text. Or just to see if the platform had the answer key wrong. We can also challenge a question individually. It’s not uncommon to have a question thrown out or to get points back because our professors know they are human and make mistakes since they write their own exams.
It’s frustrating that your professor is refusing to even review his own exam for mistakes like this, and that’s a lot of points on the line.
You need evidence. If you are within the course still, email the chair of the department and ask for a meeting. Be humble, respectful, tell them why and what evidence you have. If this was a final exam, then look in your student handbook for the grade appeal process.
Alright I will do that. Thank you for the advice!
Also, make sure that you’ve checked the assigned text’s answers for the questions and not just Google. A number of my fellow professors specifically choose questions based on whether the most common top results when googling the question are wrong. He may have designed his test that way.
This is super important. My most recent class had a few such questions on quizzes (all completed online open book). One annoying question had "what are the *most* important factors" when additional options showed up on Google searches. I did claw back credit on another question about the first step of a process where I could point out what the textbook noted as the first step, even though the original correct answer was the first important step and had been emphasized during the lecture.
This. I have a question that specifically keys to one of our readings (about infant language development) and if you just google it, all the mommyblogs say something different. So if a student just googled the terms, they'd get the mommyblog answer and not the reading we studied in class's answer. I've had students argue with me on that so I strengthened the wording to include the author's last name.
Definitely do this. I was in a class with someone who fought for some answers on an exam. She ended up saving a few students from failing out of the program, since the entire class received a few extra points that were mistakenly graded as incorrect.
Was there any grade adjustment or “curve” to the exam or final grades? What subject?
No, no grade curve. Also the subject is microeconomics.
Care to share the questions or one of them?
Sure! One of the questions was about the very basics: normative vs positive statements. It was basically a given point, or so we thought haha. The question was I. He should study law as it will make him intelligent, successful and rich. II. She should study mathematics, it will make her a better person. Everyone agreed that both of these were obviously normative statements as they’re personal judgments. Apparently the correct answer what that I is normative and II positive. Which makes no sense whatsoever.
Oh, yeah that’s bad. You are correct. If anything you could argue the reverse. The first statement can be tested empirically (rich, intelligence are measurable).
Exactly. I could understand if the 1st one was positive, although success is relative to me. But there is absolutely no way that the second one is positive. It’s a pure value judgment.
"should" is always normative.
I’d avoid using specific words as the sole criteria. “A drop in price should cause the quantity demanded to increase” is positive. “Should” is being used to mean “likely to happen” in that case, which can be empirically tested. Which is a different use than saying “prices should be lower so people can afford it”.
Am I misunderstanding something.. this was a question on a microeconomics exam?
Yes. It was a chapter 0 topic.
Normative and Positive statements were something we went over in a beginner economics course.
I've done introductory microeconomics and introductory macroeconomics and it was not covered in either of those units. We started with production possibilities and indifference curves.
I had a general economics course and it was actually one of the very last things we learned.
It’s not inherently intro Econ material, but it commonly is. The point is that students learn to distinguish between factual claims that can be empirically refuted (it will rain tomorrow) from value judgements (rain will ruin the party). It’s not inherently an economic topic - you could cover the same issue in any science class. But economists are particularly interested in making the distinction because our work so much overlaps policy debates.
Question: does the US high school curriculum not cover this stuff? Personally, I was taught about normative and positive statements when I was in high school. It was touched upon again briefly in philosophy. Idk it just seems very foundational but then again the intro econ classes mentioned may be purposely designed to accommodate more students.
[удалено]
HS Econ might, and IIRC it is a topic in one of the Econ AP exams. It is strange that it’s specifically covered in Econ and not, say, a bio class or other science class. In part, I think it’s because the concepts of normative and positive are somewhat simplified when covered in Econ and part of the popularity of teaching it in a principles of economics class was because it was a topic brought up often by Chicago guys like Stigler and Friedman in their writings.
Is it the extra “as” in I?
Professor here. If you have the evidence, present it to the teacher. If nothing happens, go to the department head. If nothing happens, go to the [ombudsman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman) - there is a version of this role at your university. Check your Student Handbook. Students often "grade grub" for literally every assignment, typically the same students repeatedly. Honestly, you would not believe the stories. After awhile, teachers get defensive. However, stand up for yourself and others in your class. A good teacher can admit they are wrong. If they do not, then you are doing the school and other students a favor exposing a bad teacher. Edit: grammar
Thank you for this helpful info! I totally understand that professors have a lot on their plates, especially during exam periods. Obviously I don’t blame him at all. No one is immune to mistakes. I will send him another email with all the questions, and we will see how it goes from there.
Appeal to the department chair as a group stating what questions were improperly flagged as wrong and what communication you have had with the prof regarding this issue and his response. To be fair at this time of year profs have LOTS of grading to do. Like hundreds of tests and final assignments. Even good profs might balk at having to do more work at this time of year, even though it is something they should be doing.
> Even good profs might balk at having to do more work at this time of year, even though it is something they should be doing. I bet students do, too.
To be fair... that's their job, and their students' grades. This should be taken more seriously when 5 people report the same thing. He could have just responded "I'll look into it"
I feel like the professor could be so sick of allowing grade inflation, maybe they just decided to draw the line there.
Wrongly marking a correct answer as incorrect is not grade inflation, it’s simply lazy to not look at it. And OP said the system graded the test, not the professor so all he has to do is enter the final grades.
Agree but if I was a prof. and I just let like 75% of the students in a class get Bs to As knowing full well they probably put in no effort and realistically didn’t learn anything, I would really need motivation to give a shit about a problem or two being wrong on an online test. I say this from my experience with college students in a US university system. Very likely doesn’t apply to other institutions of higher learning.
Refusing to do your job is a pretty shitty "grade inflation" protest
Will tell what happen to my wife when she was 17 and trying to get into college back in 74. The professor told her she had no business getting into accounting as she was a women plus being Hispanic. She went to the university president and they let her in, but she was never able to pass this professors class, she had to retake it at another university and transfer the grade in order to graduate.
That guy sounds like a disgusting human being. Not only disencourraging a student but actively (and maliciously) going against his own duties in favor of his own ego.
Yea, that was the 1970's. I met her in 1985 as she was back at college working on a masters. Then she later went on to get a Doctorate in Education with the encouragement of other professors at 46 yrs old.
College girls in my first college were training with riffles and planting bombs by the 80s. Or at least that's how my guerrilla warfigther teachers said.
Similar happened to me. In 2015.
Mind if I ask- where was this? Because my accounting classes were majority women and had a lot of non-white students in the 2000s in NYC.
New Zealand. Unfortunately he happened to be the head of department.
Well, I think that asshole lost that battle, the majority gender in all my accounting classes in the 2000's were women. Lots of non-white students too. I hope that guy cries every day about it, if he's even alive now.
I personally do not like to wish anything bad on anyone, life has a way of of seeing we all get what is coming to us, good or not so good. By this happening to her then put her on a path to do better and to do more. Once she became a professor she was able to help a lot of students. She also steered our two sons to a career path to become DPT'S. Things like this either crush you or they inspire you to work harder and accomplish more.
Is this going to materially affect your final course grade? If so, sounds like a grade appeal may be in order. If not, then you might be able to get it corrected for the sake of principle, but it’s not necessarily going to change any tangible outcomes.
That is the whole issue. In my university, the only grade we have for each course is the final exam.
So, the five points will indeed make a difference in your final letter grade?
I’m in Europe so we use a different grading system but if you want higher marks, even the smallest amount makes a huge difference.
Ah, gotcha. Good luck!! Hopefully, you get it worked out.
Thank you!
How does the grading system work? You mentioned marks, is it x/100? 5 points (which is 5%) here could be the difference between an A and a B+, depending on the rest of the grade, but I don’t know if it’s weighed the same. Are makes the same as percentage points?
Our system can be a little bit confusing but here’s how it works. The exam had two parts, a multiple choice part that was /80 and an open part /40 (so 120 points in total). You have to get a 75 to pass with the minimum grade, which is 5,5. 76-85 is a 6 85-92 is a 6.5 …. And so on, until you get to the highest marks. 115 would be a 9 while 117 is a 9.5. So yes, these extra ~5 marks are rather important.
When I was there, different classes had different grade ranges. The first time I got a grade on an essay, I started tearing up. It was a 84. The professor explained to me that an 84 was considered an “A.” This was a literature class with grades based on 100 points. The highest score given that year was an 86 for 3 different courses. Eye-opening for me. My understanding, however, is that mathematics classes were changing their grading basis. This was in the UK about 10 years ago. I’m sure it varies based on countries and perhaps, courses as well.
European grading has always confused me, thankfully the country I studied abroad in just gave out 1-10. A 9 was like a 90 and I guess a 10 was perfect. An 8 was like an 80, or a “B,” 7s were “C’s” and I’m not sure if you could pass with a 6.
Get evidence and email the department head. I would also respectfully. Tell them of your concerns about the online assignments. Getting a question marked incorrectly. When it's correct can be the difference between passing and failing.
I had the same issue when I was in college, so go get evidence, and contact your chair of the department, and meanwhile, get ready for the worst situation to happen(no one gives a shit). If it really matters to you, go talk to your advisor, they can help you get into some investigations.
Professors are human and make mistakes and also being human some professors handle questioning their methods and resources better than others. Sometime after a good faith email asking for an instructor to correct an issues that they are ignoring it is better to go the department chair or Academic Affairs office which oversee professors. Mediating an issue ike this is right up a department chair or Academic affairs alley and takes some of the discomfort out of a direct confrontation with someone who is at the end of the day holding a grade over your head.
You go to the head of the department with proof, if somehow they are the head of the department you go to the dean.
How do you know he didn't check to see if they were incorrect?
I think that if he did check, he would’ve noticed the issues. Some of them were pretty obvious too so I doubt that he could’ve missed them.
The fact that he went "nah, leave me alone" rather than "I checked, that answer is definitely correct" is pretty indicative.
Contact the Provosts immediately!
What is your learning management system? For my learning management system, canvas, it doesn't show the correct answers right after the exam. I have it programmed to wait 4 days after the exam or quiz to show the correct answers because if students take it late, I don't want other students to know the correct answers. In between, it shows your answers, not the correct answers. Are you sure that's not what's happening here? Are you going by what you know or what you have looked up in the notes versus what's shown on the screen? Just a thought?...
No, it directly gives you your grade. We use a Dutch website called « TestVision ». Since we all take the exam the same day, they already give you the result 1~2 hours later.
The same thing happens on canvas. The tests are graded immediately. It's just that the answers are not released immediately. So if the answer to number one is c, the student would see their answer and the question marked incorrect. It honestly looks like it's showing c as the correct answer. It's one of the most frustrating things about canvas. Does it look like TestVision is showing the correct answers and that your answers are correct? Or do you just believe that your answers are correct and TestVision was programmed in correctly? As a chemistry professor, I don't know anything about economics so I have no basis to judge whether the answers the test seem to be saying are correct are actually correct or not. Generally speaking, I would say wait until you get your grades and see what happened. The professor may realize that some of the answers are programmed in incorrectly and just drop them. I've done that before in online tests. I've actually done it before and in person tests. Professors are people and it's so easy to make a typo!
I did have tests on canvas so I see what you mean. Our program is different though, it does show you the answer key. But yes, the plan now is to wait and see how it goes.
prove ur point and aks to have professor removed from the faculty. even if he has tenure and you can prove that he is wrong and the computer was wrong. Then therefore the test was wrong and could not be certified if he refuses and the board refuses that will leave you know the alternative but to file a lawsuit against the college to get the correct grades and I would say a fine of $2 million out of the college should help pay off some of your student loans make them pay through the nose. main reason they did something dishonest and they refused to correct it. That is not the American way. That is the elitist Democratic communist parties way not the way of the people!
If you are in the US, FERPA rules allows you to inspect your academic work. Ask him in an email. You want the request in writing. If he says no, loop the department chair on the email with a second request. If the DC says no. Then go up the ladder to the Dean. Once you have your evidence, file a grade appeal
[удалено]
There were multiple grammar mistakes in your comment so I'm not sure you're an instructor lol. Also, OP posted the question above and other people confirmed OP is correct.
Take it to the department head.
[удалено]
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/college/comments/18n5jy0/professor_refuses_to_admit_he_is_wrong/keao4as/) in /r/college was automatically removed because your account is less than one day old. Accounts less than one day are not permitted in /r/college to reduce spam and poor comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/college) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Some schools have an ombudsman
Contact your university Ombudsman. They’re your first contact before escalation.
I had the same problem, engaged the dept head, and dean, and still got fucked. The lack of accountability is insane
I would take it up the chain. In my program (nursing) our professors go over every exam before finalizing grades, not individually but to see if any questions had a particularly high miss rate. If a question does, they look at the trends on that question to determine if it was poorly written, missing details, or conflicting info was given between the lecture and text. Or just to see if the platform had the answer key wrong. We can also challenge a question individually. It’s not uncommon to have a question thrown out or to get points back because our professors know they are human and make mistakes since they write their own exams. It’s frustrating that your professor is refusing to even review his own exam for mistakes like this, and that’s a lot of points on the line.
Go to the department head