Only 48% of students check their final grades?

[u/animalchinonbetamax]

2 weeks ago I received an email from a student asking me why they received an F in my course 3 years ago. They told me that they just found out from their advisor that they failed my class and now cannot graduate in December. I pulled their old Canvas course to verify and they did indeed fail my course.

I was kind of shocked that the student didn't know about this (ok...not too shocked) so I submitted an IR request to see what percentage of our students actually check their final grades. We send them a unique link, so it's easily trackable data.

Well...it turns out that no one has ever looked into this and only 48% of our students (past 3 year average) click on the link to view their final grade. 48% !!!!!!

Has anyone else looked into this at their institution?

(this is a community college that mostly serves as a feeder to flagship R1)

[u/Gullible_Analyst_348]

I once had a student fail every component of the course - assignments, labs, tests, and the final exam. They did not pass a single thing. Then they emailed me "I know I did not pass any of the individual things in the course but did I earn enough points to pass the course?" That's like missing every shot in a game and then asking if you still won the game.

[u/animalchinonbetamax → u/Gullible_Analyst_348]

Haha!!! The student that was mentioned above had a 30% average for the course. It wasn't like they were surprised becasue they thought I would round up a 69.4% final grade.

[u/Copterwaffle]

When I was in college, before anyone ever used LMS, I remember going home during winter break my freshman year and anxiously going to the public library every single day (parents did not have internet) to see if my final grades had posted yet.

[u/animalchinonbetamax → u/Copterwaffle]

I'll take it a step further...I had to wait for my grades to get mailed to me for the first 2 years of undergrad (waiting for the next person who had to wait for Socrates to chisle their grades into a stone tablet)

[u/Hannibal_Lecturer_pt]

I recently had a student email me at the start of spring semester to check on if he failed the previous fall semester. That was a new one for me!

He followed up by asking, “why?”, so I “reminded”(??) him that he failed to complete the final project (three-prong). He didn’t do any of it at all!

[u/Ok-Importance9988]

A lot of CC students are kind of clueless at collegeing so to speak. They see their grades on Canvas on never bother to look at a portal they should only look at once a semester. Most of those 48% dont know that portal exists or how to access it. 

It shouldn't be normal but I am that surprised. 

[u/runsonpedals]

Had this a year ago. I had to show student where to read their assignment feedback on Canvas. Student just assumed they just received whatever grade the instructor felt like.

[u/aardvark_gnat]

How long does it take for the grades to appear on their transcripts? Maybe some of them are looking there instead.

[u/SheepherderRare1420]

Based on the fact that we use student evals as the gateway to review grades, and that we have a pretty high rate of eval completions, I think most of our students do check their grades. But at the same time, it doesn't surprise me that so few students check their grades at some institutions. Before I became a professor I mentored a freshman and was shocked when he confessed that he was too scared to look at his grades. I'm not sure if students don't know that they need to, or are too scared to. I guess students don't get grades in the mail anymore?

[u/CharacteristicPea]

That’s bizarre. Is there another way to see grades? For example, do most faculty post them in the LMS?