An Empirical Study on Skewness of Test Scores of a Management Subject in an Autonomous Engineering College – A Case Study

Most of the engineering colleges with autonomous status are using Relative Grading System in evaluating their student performance. Under this approach, student performance is first quantified as marks. Then, the instructor assigns the letter grades. Good distribution of marks obtained by the class results in a normal curve with skewness nearer to zero. This is essential for the fair assignment of letter grades. And, this is possible by employing question papers having questions that require distinctly different levels of scholastic ability and careful evaluation. Employing the practice of setting neither too easy nor too tough questions, and following the procedure of neither too strict nor too liberal evaluation will help in achieving the objective of assigning fair grades. An attempt is made to verify the conditions that favor the attainment of fair grades in the relative grading system by conducting various tests. Details about those tests regarding the nature of evaluation followed and the results obtained are discussed in this paper. Those results are useful to faculty members while deciding the nature of evaluation to be followed in grading the students of any engineering college