Med students take on Wits

Even if the assessment method is unreasonable, arbitrary, or unfair, I still don't see how it's a human rights issue?
 
Knyro said:
What course did you do?

Where do you get 17 from?

~70 people got BScs with distinction and ~50 BSc (honours) with 1st class in that pdf. Those are not individual subjects either but their majors.
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With distinction in a subject vs degree with distinction. I get the feeling that you lied when you said you have a Bsc.
 
Johnatan56 said:
With distinction in a subject vs degree with distinction. I get the feeling that you lied when you said you have a Bsc.
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1) That subject is their major I.e. the point of their degree.
2) All those honours first class passes prove your year was full of dumbasses
3) Post what you studied so that I can sneer at it too.
 
Knyro said:
1) That subject is their major I.e. the point of their degree.
2) All those honours first class passes prove your year was full of dumbasses
3) Post what you studied so that I can sneer at it too.
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1) I was talking about cum laude, not distinction in a subject, lots of us got that.
2) No it doesn't.
3) Software
And you're quite dense it seems, since you can't seem to understand point 1, which was the point I am trying to make.
Why would you care about the 95th percentile for one subject when it's across all subjects? You're being obtuse.
 
Johnatan56 said:
1) I was talking about cum laude, not distinction in a subject, lots of us got that.
2) No it doesn't.
3) Software
And you're quite dense it seems, since you can't seem to understand point 1, which was the point I am trying to make.
Why would you care about the 95th percentile for one subject when it's across all subjects? You're being obtuse.
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No use arguing any further.

Good day Mr. Diploma.
 
lumeer said:
That shouldn't happen; two wrongs don't make a right.
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Since there was only one wrong, a poorly set paper, there is no issue.

Mark adjustments were not a wrong. They were done when appropriate in a sound manner. They are not always upward adjustments either.
 
Headline is inaccurate.

These are no longer med students.
 
Johnatan56 said:
You need to take the course as well before making such a comment. It's very strange if a course has many students with an average above 75%. I thought you did a Bsc? Was it a BA instead?

Count how many degrees with distinction: http://www.students.uct.ac.za/sites...graduation/2018/2018-04-04_1500_Science_1.pdf
I'm not talking individual subjects, I am talking throughout the entire degree. 17 out of 3 pages, near the 400 mark of students in the normal Bsc. 1:23 is about the same as our degree had.

Ending a degree with a distinction is insanely difficult, and those who get it are definitely a cut above the rest. And most of those will have averaged between 75 and 80%, 95th percentile means that the person had <75% average or about that, means the pass rate for a Bsc would have been 45% instead of the current 50% if we are judging it like that.

1st year marks are generally higher though, so assume that would make it hover around 50% instead. And remember, I am basing this on the people that passed, half will have failed, so they will drag that 95th percentile down.
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My average accross 30 modules for my BSc in 2007 was 82%. I still can't understand how I got such good results to this day, since the Mathematics and Stats was balls insane. I think they moderated the marks heavily.
 
noxibox said:
Since there was only one wrong, a poorly set paper, there is no issue.

Mark adjustments were not a wrong. They were done when appropriate in a sound manner. They are not always upward adjustments either.
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I think it would have been more appropriate to re-administer the exam, for example, by allowing students to write the supplementary exam if they wanted, than adjust the marks.

Mark adjustments are merely projections of how a student might have fared had they performed according to their past academic performance and, what's worse, are based on expectations of how students ought to perform, not how they did perform. In the case that you mentioned, how did they decide what the final pass rate ought to be? The marks were adjusted according to an expected pass rate and marks distribution which does not necessarily reflect the ability of the class. For individual students, their adjusted mark was merely a projection - and probably not a very sophisticated one - of how the lecturer thought they would have performed had the paper been more reasonable. What about borderline cases? When the lecturer projected that some student would have gotten a pass mark of 50 % had the exam been more reasonable, how could they be sure that the student would not have gotten a fail mark of 45 % instead?

For the case that you mentioned, is it fair that some students had their marks adjusted downwards? Is it right that some student correctly answered say 50 % of the paper, but only got 40 % because the lecturer felt that a mark of 50 % did not reflect their true level of competence?

Mark adjustments are unethical because they have the potential to misrepresent a student's competence. The fact that the intention behind it is good, does not make it good.
 
PP’s office backs down over Wits student’s marks dispute

A complainant said his son had obtained 59% instead of 60% due to a ‘defective’ marking or assessment system, which excluded him from the university.







The office of the public protector has agreed to back down after attempting to intervene in a dispute between a student and the University of the Witwatersrand over the institution’s use of the Cohen standard marking method.

The public protector had attempted to conduct an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) after being approached by a complainant who claimed his child had been irregularly excluded from the institution because of this marking system.

Public protector spokesperson, Oupa Segwale, said the complainant said his son had obtained 59% instead of 60% due to a “defective” marking or assessment system.

“He alleged that the system was piloted in 2016, defects were later identified, and the university addressed them. The defects recurred in 2018, thereby prejudicing the students concerned. The public protector recently conducted an ADR on the matter, where the disagreeing parties were brought together,” said Segwale.
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More at : https://citizen.co.za/news/south-af...-backs-down-over-wits-students-marks-dispute/
 
lumeer said:
For the case that you mentioned, is it fair that some students had their marks adjusted downwards? Is it right that some student correctly answered say 50 % of the paper, but only got 40 % because the lecturer felt that a mark of 50 % did not reflect their true level of competence?
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Yes, it is fair. The lecturer's feelings don't come into it. Mark adjustments are not arbitrary nor are they made lightly.

Mark adjustments are unethical because they have the potential to misrepresent a student's competence. The fact that the intention behind it is good, does not make it good.
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That makes exams unethical too.

I think it would have been more appropriate to re-administer the exam, for example, by allowing students to write the supplementary exam if they wanted
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Why should they? I must return to the university because the lecturer made an error? Is the university going to pay me for my time?
 
I'm such a believer in equality, I propose we swop jobs every week so everybody gets a chance to play doctor or run a nuclear substation in the name of inclusivity..
 
Lol I know people who studied medicine and they had like no social life. If you fail you fail. You didn't put in the extra work like so many other students did.
 
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