Evidence-Based Approach to Switching to a Pass-Fail System for Clinical Year Veterinary Student Grading

Veterinary schools have traditionally used letter grading systems to assess the performance of students on clinical rotations, but pass-fail grading may enhance the learning environment and student well-being. When a decision to switch grading systems is discussed, concerns are often raised about the effect of removing clinical year grades from final grade point average (GPA) calculations. In order to inform the decision making at our institution, retrospective analysis of the effects of clinical year grades on GPA was performed. The specific hypothesis tested was that clinical year GPA would not have a significant effect on cumulative GPA, as defined by a decrease or increase of 0.10 points on average. When data from two classes were examined, median (range) difference final GPA (0-4 scale) compared to GPA at the end of the pre-clinical curriculum (referred to as delta GPA) was 0.02 (-0.19 to 0.18) for the graduating class of 2016 after removal of two outliers and 0.03 (-0.10 to 0.18) for the class of 2017. Correlations between preclinical GPA and delta GPA (were -0.83 (p < .001) for both classes. The hypothesis was supported, leading to the conclusion that the overall effect of clinical letter grades on final GPA was close to zero when whole classes were considered, and delta GPA ranged between -0.2 and 0.2 for all except two students. Data from this study were distributed prior to conducting a faculty vote to switch grading systems, and the motion was supported.