Grades in the UK and US continued: liberal arts versus STEM

Continuing on from my previous post, I have looked a little further into the differences between grading systems in the UK and the US.

In my earlier post I argue that it is somewhat easier to achieve higher grades in the US than in the UK. However my perspective on this topic is warped by the fact that, rather than belonging to the sciences, I am a liberal arts student. As such it is only appropriate to consider whether grading also differs for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students.

Following some secondary and informal primary research, I have come across an interesting observation: non-STEM students in the UK seem less likely to achieve higher grades than STEM students, while in the US the opposite appears to be true.

In 2012 the UK Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) reported that only 8.1% of law students compared with 30% of mathematics students were awarded first class degrees. The table below further demonstrates this disparity. This contrasts with Todd and Ralph Stinebrickner’s (2011) findings that while 19.8% of US students begin university with the intention of majoring in STEM fields, only 7.4% remain true to their word as the remaining 12.4% move towards liberal arts where grading is less harsh.

First class degrees awarded by subject for the academic year (UK) 1998/99 (HESA 2001)

From what I gather this is partly linked to the mechanisms through which liberal arts and STEM subjects are graded. As previously mentioned, from a liberal arts perspective 100% is valued differently in both countries. In the US it refers to the highest expectation placed upon students while in the UK 100% is a standard measured against the entire academic community. However this only holds true when marking subjective and argument driven essays. From a STEM perspective 100% means getting all the questions in a paper correct. In short, getting 7/10 in a STEM subject will result in a 70% being awarded in both the UK and the US, but not the same grade. Rather as my previous post indicates, 70% equals a ‘first’ in the UK and a barely passable ‘C’ in the US.

For the sake of brevity I will not look too much further into this. Certainly with 70% being an entirely different threshold for both countries, I am sure that STEM questions would be much more challenging in the UK to prevent everyone getting artificially high grades. Curving of grades is also something that needs to be taken into consideration. However, the fundamental differences in grading style between both countries do point to it being more possible to achieve higher grades in STEM subjects than the liberal arts in the UK, and the reverse in the US.

References

HESA (2001) ‘Statistics Focus’, Higher Education Statistics Agency, 2, 3, 1-22.

HESA (2012) ‘Higher education student enrolments and qualifications obtained at higher education institution in the United Kingdom for the academic year 2010/11’ (WWW), Higher Education Statistics Agency (https://www.hesa.ac.uk/pr/2355-statistical-first-release-169; 12 January 2016).

Stinebrickner T.R. and R. Stinebrickner (2011) ‘Math or science? Using longitudinal expectations data to examine the process of choosing a college major’ (WWW), Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research (http://www.nber.org/papers/w16869; 12 January 2016).