Grades at German Universities 1950 – 2010

The goal of the DFG project ´The Grading at German Universities from the 1960s to today. Trends, differences, causes ´(MU 1625/7) was to examine whether there are systematic influences on the grade level of exam grades that are not based on the level of examiners´ performance. Such influence has been increasingly discussed in the last decade, the ´grade inflation´: the grade level is getting better and better without any performance improvement behind it. For analysis, long-term time series are necessary. That´s why
exam grades (Diplom, Magister, 1. Staatsexamen) were collected for periods as far back as possible. By 1997, grades for nine core subjects were taken from individual examination papers in the university archives of eight universities. From this annual average grades were formed and stored in time series. From 1998, these time series were continued with the data on the examination statistics of the Federal Statistical Office, which from this point onwards covered all individual university examinations electronically.

The evaluation shows stable, large differences between subjects, between universities in the same subject, as well as grade inflation and cyclical courses.

Data tables in HISTAT:
The N for forming the average scores for calculating inferential statistics, among others confidence intervals, are recorded separately. [N less than 4 are not specified for reasons of data protection].