. School and university grades. ability integral, because the individualdifferences in native capacity are according to most studiesapproximately so distributed. Such a distribution of marks as has been proposed finds,therefore, justification both from theoretical considerations,and from the fact that it is used in actual practice. Severalproposals have been made in regard to the division of the dis-tributions into groups corresponding to the usual grades of ex-cellent, good, fair, poor, and failure. What proportion of stu-dents should be found in each grade, assuming that theirmarks are to be
. School and university grades. ability integral, because the individualdifferences in native capacity are according to most studiesapproximately so distributed. Such a distribution of marks as has been proposed finds,therefore, justification both from theoretical considerations,and from the fact that it is used in actual practice. Severalproposals have been made in regard to the division of the dis-tributions into groups corresponding to the usual grades of ex-cellent, good, fair, poor, and failure. What proportion of stu-dents should be found in each grade, assuming that theirmarks are to be distributed according to a normal distribu-tion? If we divide the base line of a theoretical curve into fiveequal parts in order to secure the same range of abilities, weshould secure the following percentages in each grade in anormal distribution: A B C D E Excellent Good Fair Poor Failure 2% 23% 50% 23% 2% 18 THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN This distribution is shown in the upper distribution ofFigure 8. Figure 2 of Cattell. •. Professor Cattell believes a somewhat different distributionmore convenient for practical use, as indicated in the followingquotation from his discussion: If the performances of students in examinations are as-sumed to vary in the same way as their height, then we can,if we like, place them in classes which represent equal differ-ences. Thus by the Harvard-Columbia method of groupinginto five classes, if we put half of the men into the middleclass, C, and let B and D represent an equal range, we shouldhave about 23 per cent of both Bs and Ds and about 2 per Popular Science Monthly. 66: 372. CsLtteU, Examinations, Grades and Credits in Popular Science Monthly66: 371 seq. SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY GRADES 19 cent of Hs and Fs. This, however, gives too few men in theH and F classes for our purposes. If we make the range ofthe unit 20 per cent smaller, we obtain the distribution shownin Figure 3, (reproduced in Figure 8, lower chart), accordingto which of ten me
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