In a standard classroom, test grades are easy to determine. If you answer all questions correctly, your grade is 100, and therefore an “A.” If you respond correctly to 80% of the questions on a test, then you receive a “B,'' and so on. This is called “absolute grading.”

However, many schools and universities impose a grading curve on courses. In a “curved” course, a student’s grades are determined relative to [1] other students. Depending on the severity of the curve, only a certain percentage of students might receive an “A” even if all students performed very well on the exam.

While grading curves are increasingly common, a growing consensus among educational professionals is that this form of grading creates unhealthy competition among students and stifles the spirit of collaboration. Why do many schools impose grading curves, and why are many experts now arguing that the practice should be discontinued?

Curved exams: maintaining fairness but stoking competition

Imposing a grading curve can curb grade inflation: the rewarding of higher grades than students deserve. When all of the students in a course receive a high grade, this raises difficult questions. Were the course materials too easy? Was the professor being sufficiently rigorous? If not, can we really be sure that all of the students who got an A in the course have mastered [2] the material at hand? Instead, curved exams allow course instructors to control the distribution of grades by giving the highest marks to only the top students.

Curving exam results can benefit students as well. On a very difficult exam where most students receive very low scores, a curve might raise the overall grades. As a result, curving grades can help to standardize the expectations and workloads placed on students. Otherwise, some teachers might create very easy tests, while others might make tests much more difficult so that only a few students can pass.

Despite the popularity of curving grades in schools, however, the practice has also drawn strong criticism. Most importantly, a curved exam pits students against one another. Only a certain number of students can receive the top marks, and correspondingly, some students are bound to fail, even if all students try their best.

Many experts have argued that this dynamic stifles collaboration. By extension, high achieving students might be blamed for raising the average, thereby lowering the grades of those at the bottom of the curve. These students might be the target of resentment and even bullying from their peers, and this negative attention might discourage gifted students from doing their best in future coursework. On the other hand, students who perform below average might give up on their studies altogether. Why bother studying if you aren’t confident that you can “beat” the students at the top of your class?

The importance of collaboration

Adam Grant, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, has researched the impact of grading curves on college students. He writes:

“[Curved Grading] creates an atmosphere that’s toxic by pitting students against one another. At best, it creates a hypercompetitive culture, and at worst, it sends students the message that the world is a zero-sum game [3]: Your success means my failure.”

In fact, Adam noticed that when he removed competitive grading curves from his courses, students were more likely to share helpful resources with each other, such as class notes, study guides, and practice quizzes. So too were students more likely to form study groups, tutor each other, and learn collaboratively. Overall, he found a notable improvement in exam results when a cooperative environment was fostered among his students. Based on this observation, Grant reflects on the prevalence of depression and anxiety among college students today:

“On my most optimistic days, I wonder whether campus mental health would improve if more classes were designed to encourage participants to support one another. Would students be better off if they saw classmates as people who had their back, rather than people who might stab them in the back?”

Beyond the Classroom, in the professional sphere

While grades are primarily a topic of concern for students, teachers, and administrators, the questions raised in this debate surrounding grading extend far beyond the classroom. After all, we continue to be assessed by our peers in other areas of life, particularly in the professional sphere. What forms of assessment recognize and reward cooperation rather than competition and resentment? While this question has no easy answers, many experts agree that an atmosphere that fosters collaboration is key to success in the office, as well as in the classroom. Writing for Forbes, Hayashi writes, “If you want to create a culture that will produce breakthrough results, collaboration trumps competition by a long shot.”

Students who have been taught to compete with one another for grades might have a difficult time adapting to the collaborative workspace that Hayashi describes here. Their days in school have taught them to hoard information to themselves, to aim for self-sufficiency, and to allow others to fail. All in all, a recipe for professional disaster. In rethinking our grading policies in the classroom, we should consider the fact that success in the workplace depends on the ability to work well with others.