Declining standards should not be ignored

When the HES reported last month that I had resigned from my personal chair in economics at Macquarie University, vice-chancellor Di Yerbury took the opportunity to dismiss as "extremely, grossly inaccurate" comments I had earlier made about declining university standards. This is a response to Professor Yerbury's charges. Among my comments, reported in another newspaper, were the following factual observations:

• Forty per cent of students fail the second year course that I teach. Some students have failed the course four to five times. At least one student has failed the course six times.
• Foreign students who get a second-year entry to Macquarie after completing their first year with the Sydney Institute of Business and Technology - a private provider on campus - have a failure rate of 66 per cent.
• The summer school has failure rates of 60 to 70per cent.
• In response to the comments that standards at all levels, from high distinctions to passes, have fallen at another large university, I observed that "the same thing has happened at Macquarie University".

These comments were made in response to a telephone call from a reporter and relied on my memory. Nevertheless, they were essentially accurate.

Most of my comments were based on experience with a compulsory second-year course for economics undergraduates, taken five years ago by about 300 students, although numbers have fallen recently to just under 200.

In recent years the failure rates for this course were: 44 per cent in 2000, 38 per cent in 2001, 39per cent in 2002, 41 per cent in 2003 and 33per cent in 2004. The failure rate fell in 2004 because the entry prerequisites were tightened in order to improve the success rate. In the 1980s, failure rates in second-year courses were rarely higher than 15 per cent.

In 2004, two students were enrolled in the course for the sixth time, two for the fifth time, and two for the fourth time. (I erred in saying that someone had failed the course six times.)

Moreover, between 2000 and 2004, 11 per cent of students in these courses were awarded only a conceded pass grade (PC) by obtaining marks between 45 and 49. Thus, barely half the students obtained a genuine pass mark. Four university lecturers have examined on this course and there has been no significant variation between them.

Most direct entry second-year students enter via SIBT. In 2000, 57 per cent of the second-year entry students failed the course and a further 11 per cent obtained only a PC. In a parallel second year economics course with about 600 students, 61 per cent of second-year entry students failed and another 19 per cent obtained only a PC. Thus, only about one-third of these students obtained a genuine pass.

In the other year (2003) for which I have a record, 66 per cent of the SIBT entry students failed the course and a further 12 per cent obtained only a PC.

In 2003, the university introduced a summer vacation course for failures in this second year course. The failure rates in the summer course (on which I do not teach) have been 68 per cent in 2003, 47 per cent 2004 and 60 per cent in 2005. PCs have averaged 17 per cent.

When this summer course was introduced, I suggested that students with a course mark below 40 per cent in the subject (not 50 per cent, as quoted in the newspaper report) in the preceding semester should not be allowed to sit the summer course, because nearly all of these students would predictably fail again (as they did), and it was unfair to take their money in such circumstances. My proposal was turned down.

The high numbers of failures and conceded passes is evidence of declining standards. Students can progress into third-year courses with conceded passes and may graduate with unlimited conceded passes. Up to the early 1990s, it was customary to give only 2 per cent to 3 per cent conceded passes. Other students with less than 50 per cent marks would be failed.

Failure rates have risen in other commerce areas in recent years. For example, in two large second-year accounting courses in 2004, with more than 800 and over 700 students in them, the failure rates rose to 36 per cent and 28 per cent, along with conceded pass rates of 15 per cent and 14 per cent respectively.

Conscious that the failure rates in my second year course were rising and substantially exceeded the university guidelines that failure rates be below 20 per cent unless there are exceptional circumstances, I ran in 1999 a survey on student work hours. More than 40 per cent of the students worked less than five hours a week on the course compared with the then university guidelines that students were expected to work 12hours a week on a standard course. A follow-up faculty-wide survey a year later came up with similar results.

There is some evidence from the national survey of economics departments that I ran for the Economic Society of Australia in 2003-04 that the decline in student participation is a national phenomenon and that it is a significant factor in other departments where standards are perceived to have fallen.

As part of a general quality-raising program, I proposed some three years ago that the commerce faculty at Macquarie University draw up a memorandum of understanding outlining faculty and student responsibilities. This would be signed annually by both parties and ensure that students are fully aware of the expectations on them. No effective action has occurred to date.

In 2002, I ran two vocabulary tests containing 36 simple questions set by a lecturer in the department of linguistics.

Among these students, drawn from all backgrounds, 37 per cent failed 10 or more questions, which the linguistics lecturer judged would make the students likely to fail economics courses on grounds of poor vocabulary alone.

As another prong in the proposed quality-raising program, I have proposed that all students entering the university in any year, including new postgraduate students, do a generic skills test in week three. The university would then have an effective measure of the linguistic and general skill base of its students and could seek to deal with the observed problems in a systematic way. Again no action has been taken on this proposal.

Over the past 15 or so years the number of students at Macquarie University has risen by about 150 per cent, from about 12,000 students to more than 30,000 students. There seems little doubt that student standards have fallen at both undergraduate and postgraduate level in at least parts of the university over this period.

Doubtless the causes of any changes in student standards are complex and, equally, there are many possible responses other than those I have suggested. But there appears to have been little effective evaluation of student standards.

Denial and bluster are not constructive responses to a potentially serious issue. The starting point should be acknowledgement that there may be genuine issues of concern. There then needs to be rigorous analysis of student standards and their causes. Following this, the university needs to be willing to act on the results of such analysis.