In which a mere four star rating indicates a problem.

[pawo]

The science fair was very cool indeed. I hope I didn't judge too harshly - I didn't check off anything higher than "average" on my judging form unless the project actually seemed better than most in the category in question. That's what I was told to do, so it should be OK as long as most of the other judges also followed the directions properly

Comments

[yehoshua]

I had a similar experience recently in a restaurant that had little "how was our service" cards on the table. Everything was good, nothing was miraculous, so I checked off all 4s and left a healthy tip.

I was accosted on the way out by the waitress, who was furious that I was trying to get her in trouble by giving her a 4 in all categories. It seems that management only wants to retain staff who can get 5s at all times. Gosh, I just sort of figured that the tip (22% because I didn't feel like messing with fiddly small change) was enough praise and generosity on my part. That will learn me, and BTW see if you ever get a nickle from me again, kid.

Stupid humans.

[pawo]

Dear God, you didn't give them the five-star rating they wanted, did you?

[z_gryphon]

"anything less gets us in trouble with the company - we lose 90% of points for that one rating."

"Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you sucked."

[zonereyrie]

I've noticed this too, but I stick to my guns. When I do surveys with a 1-5 scale I treat 3 as average - 4 is above average, 5 is excellent. I will not give out 5's just because service was *good*. Maybe 4's, but if service was just acceptable - no screw ups, nothing frustrating, then it is probably just average and gets a 3

[gower]

This is naturally on the mind of anyone who gives students grades all the time. When I taught at Texas, my chair told me that using "C" as the average grade was unacceptable.

I am part of the problem. I do not use "C" as an average grade. I suppose I ought to. On the other hand, a grade is not the same thing as a rating, is it?

[mindways]

That's the difficulty with grades - what they "mean" isn't defined anywhere except by their usage. I've seen some schools publish little "what the grades mean" booklets - but unless nearly the entire faculty adheres to those standards, the reality of what grades are given will outweigh a little pamphlet

I hate rating systems...

[krzzl]

But I think lots of other people, especially corporate, manager, marketing etc. types like them, because they can get "quantitative justification" for things that tend to be qualitative.

Some examples:
Part of our annual performance reviews use a rating scale that is usually 1-5. I have had some managers who have given me lots of high ratings, and others who feel that a 5 is impossble, and absolute perfection. If it's impossible, why put it on the scale?

An unnamed department at an unnamed academic institution puts a lot of weight for tenure on getting 95% or higher of agree and strongly agree on course evaluations.

I prefer the rubric form of grading/rating. You still end up with some kind of letter or numerical score, but it gives you some criteria to work with, and seems a little better.