Sobre la posibilidad de inflación de notas en la Universidad de Puerto Rico en Bayamón1

Abstract

Since the 70s, there has been a tendency in U.S. universities to the increase of students‘ grade point average without a concomitant increase in their achievement. This phenomenon is referred to as grade inflation. This paper develops a new approach in order to analyze whether this tendency also exists at the Bayamón Campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR-Bayamón) or not. The methodology in research includes the examination of an unbalanced panel of 4,387 academic records of full-time students who began their studies between 1995/96 and 2002/03. If grade inflation has occurred, the probability of grades in the upper (lower) bounds of the distribution should increase (decrease) over time. The conclusion about the presence or absence of grade inflation depends on the concept of time utilized.