Revealed: Durham modules ranked by student attainment

This article demonstrates how Freedom of Information requests can unlock valuable institutional data, specifically revealing stark disparities in undergraduate attainment across various academic disciplines at the University. By analyzing module grades, it becomes evident that performance is not uniform; for instance, Physics and English departments show significantly higher attainment rates compared to areas like Foundation Year modules or Modern Foreign Languages. This transparency highlights how different subjects have varying grading standards or student outcomes, challenging assumptions about academic consistency and institutional equity. The data also exposes significant grade inflation and deflation within specific year groups, such as the wide gap between the most and least successful first-year modules. Notably, final-year project grades reveal that students in Computer Science and Modern Foreign Languages achieve top honors at much higher rates than their peers in Sports Science. These variations suggest that grading practices are heavily influenced by departmental culture or assessment types rather than solely reflecting student ability, raising questions about the fairness of comparative academic rankings. This finding is highly relevant to open data initiatives because it showcases the power of citizen-led data collection through FOI portals. It proves that releasing raw, unembellished educational statistics allows the public to scrutinize institutional performance and hold universities accountable for transparency. Such accessible data empowers students and policymakers to make informed decisions, while encouraging academic institutions to justify their grading metrics in a public sphere, ultimately fostering a more equitable and understandable higher education landscape.

Source: palatinate.org.uk
Published on 2024-04-23

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