Grading at german universities from the 1960 until today. Trends, differences, causes.

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Grades serve as indicators of merit, and provide therefore signs for individual and institutional promotion. Thereby the question emerges, if and which systematic causes beyond the merit dimension may influence grades. When e.g. the level of grades constantly rises (grade inflation), grades at diverse times cannot be compared. The many variables which may influence grades have different time horizons: university system organisation (e.g. public vs. private provision) is long-term oriented, overcrowding vs. lack of students in academic fields changes every 15-20 years, a generation of professors lasts around 30 years, politically induced financing stretches only over a couple of years. Therefore, a long-term perspective is necessary. The aim of the project is the analysis of a) the movement of grades in selected fields at a number of universities since the foundation of the FRG and in full since 1998, b) the context of these movement in relation of appropriate economic, regional, university-specific and field-specific indicators, c) the norms graders at universities apply and the relation to the outcomes of a) and b). Whereas the already financed two years were mostly directed at the compilation and tailoring of the data the here proposed third year shall be concentrating on the analysis of the now accumulated extended set of information and the following publications based on that.