"Are CS grades bimodal, or unimodal? To test this, we ac-
quired the final grades distributions for every undergraduate
CS class at the University of British Columbia (UBC), from
1996 to 2013. This represents 778 different lecture sections,
containing a total of 30,214 final grades (average class size:
75)."
My understanding of the bimodal situation, if it exists, is that it primarily applies to earlier classes---later classes only include those who did well, or at least passed, the previous classes.
Ah, yes...
"Of the 45 classes which were multimodal, 16 were 100-
level classes (35%), 5 were 200-level (11%), 12 were 300-level
(27%), and 12 were 400-level (27%). For comparison, in the
full set of 778 classes, 171 were 100-level (22%), 165 were
200-level (21%), 243 were 300-level (31%), and 199 were
400-level (26%)."
How about we take a closer look at those 100 level classes, hmmm?
My understanding of the bimodal situation, if it exists, is that it primarily applies to earlier classes---later classes only include those who did well, or at least passed, the previous classes.
Ah, yes...
"Of the 45 classes which were multimodal, 16 were 100- level classes (35%), 5 were 200-level (11%), 12 were 300-level (27%), and 12 were 400-level (27%). For comparison, in the full set of 778 classes, 171 were 100-level (22%), 165 were 200-level (21%), 243 were 300-level (31%), and 199 were 400-level (26%)."
How about we take a closer look at those 100 level classes, hmmm?