Revealed: Durham modules ranked by student attainment in 2021-2022 - Palatinate
Data obtained via a Freedom of Information request reveals significant disparities in undergraduate academic attainment across university disciplines. Physics and English departments led in overall performance, achieving the highest average marks and first-class award rates, while foundation year modules and modern foreign languages like Japanese trailed significantly. This variance suggests that subject matter, student cohort characteristics, and assessment methods fundamentally influence grading outcomes, highlighting structural inequalities in how success is measured and rewarded within the institution. Performance gaps are further evident when analyzing specific year levels and individual modules. First-year design students faced exceptionally low success rates for top grades, whereas business analytics modules saw overwhelming excellence. Similarly, second-year language modules struggled to secure first-class distinctions, contrasting sharply with classical studies that achieved high proficiency rates. These fluctuations indicate that certain pedagogical approaches or module structures may inadvertently hinder student achievement, creating bottlenecks where capable students are less likely to receive the highest academic recognition compared to their peers in other disciplines. The analysis extends to final-year dissertations, where Computer Science and Modern Foreign Languages demonstrated superior outcomes compared to Sports Science. This wide disparity in postgraduate-level assessment implies that research support, topic complexity, or supervisory practices vary drastically by department. For open data advocates, this article underscores the critical need for transparent, standardized educational metrics. It illustrates how FOI requests can expose hidden inequities in higher education, enabling stakeholders to scrutinize institutional fairness and push for more equitable data practices that reflect true student potential rather than disciplinary bias.
Source: palatinate.org.ukPublished on 2025-01-15
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