Akdeniz University, Campus, 07070, Antalya, Turkey.
BMC Med Educ. 2021 Jul 22;21(1):395. doi: 10.1186/s12909-021-02819-0.
Grade inflation which is known as the awarding of higher grades than students deserve in higher education has been observed since the 1960s. There is comprehensive evidence that document the allegations, prevalence, and severity of grade inflation in higher education in universities around the world for the past 10 years.
This study analyzes the change in the ratio of graduates with a "very good (>2.99)" degree in medical education in Turkey within a 15-year-long period in terms of the grade inflation (when all other factors are constant), and factors that affect the overall achievement grades. The analyses were carried out using the grade point average (GPA) of 9,618 students who graduated from the medical schools of 25 Turkish universities, and grades of 288,540 students for 7,597 courses. In doing so, the "real" university random effects estimator modelling considering the differences in universities with correlation, ANOVA, t-test and ANCOVA analyses were carried out.
The results revealed that there was a marginal increase in grades in medical training before graduation. Twenty-nine percent grade inflation was detected in line with the relevant findings in literature and this figure is one of the highest that has been reported so far. It was also detected that the ratio of graduates with a "very good (>2.99)" degree was 17% in 2005 and it increased to 46% in 2020. Additionally, the class size, academic rank of the instructors, grades, course contents, types of the universities (public & non-profit private), accreditation of the program, and the age of the medical schools were considered as important determinants of the difference in course grades.
These results show that both the uncontrolled expansion of medical schools in Turkey and the decrease in quality cause a significant increase in grades. Moreover, an important finding is that accreditation slows down the grade inflation. Both the course grades following the accreditation process and the inflation in the graduation grades (grade inflation) slowed down significantly in the accredited medical schools. This finding is an important example for the necessity of accreditation for universities, which is referred to as the "gold standard" to improve the quality of medical education.
自 20 世纪 60 年代以来，人们一直观察到高等教育中存在的评分膨胀现象，即授予学生高于其应得的成绩。过去 10 年来，有充分的证据表明，世界各地的大学都存在评分膨胀现象，包括其指控、普遍性和严重程度。
本研究分析了在过去 15 年里，土耳其医学教育中毕业生获得“非常好（>2.99）”学位的比例变化，考虑到评分膨胀（当所有其他因素保持不变时）以及影响总体成绩的因素。该分析使用了 25 所土耳其大学医学院 9618 名毕业生的平均绩点（GPA）和 7597 门课程 288540 名学生的成绩。在此过程中，采用了考虑相关性的大学随机效应真实估计量模型，进行了方差分析、t 检验和协方差分析。
研究结果表明，在毕业前的医学培训中，成绩有轻微的提高。与文献中的相关发现一致，发现了 29%的评分膨胀，这是迄今为止报道的最高数字之一。此外，还发现 2005 年“非常好（>2.99）”学位的毕业生比例为 17%，而到 2020 年这一比例上升至 46%。此外，班级规模、教师的学术等级、成绩、课程内容、大学类型（公立和非营利性私立）、课程认证以及医学院的年龄被认为是课程成绩差异的重要决定因素。
这些结果表明，土耳其医学院的无控制扩张和质量下降都导致了成绩的显著提高。此外，一个重要的发现是认证减缓了评分膨胀。在获得认证的医学院中，无论是认证过程后的课程成绩还是毕业成绩（评分膨胀）都显著放缓。这一发现为认证对于大学的必要性提供了一个重要的例证，认证被称为提高医学教育质量的“黄金标准”。
