Question

What was the average percentage of people that failed a course at your university?

Answer 1

When I studied in Germany, it really depended on the course and the year. Year 1 had exams with 80% failure rate, Year 4 had exams with 0% failure rate.

Overall, I think ~30% of the students managed to graduate successfully. And the vast majority of students who dropped out did so in their first 1-3 semesters to pursue another subject.

Answer 2

I'm a uni lecturer in geosciences in the UK (I teach modelling and intro maths) at a top 20 uni and if my course looked like that I'd be in deep shit. Generally a fail rate >5% would indicate serious teaching quality issues. What's the purpose of having a class that everyone fails? They're clearly not learning anything then.

Answer 3

Not really a math student but former physics student, I was in a pretty small program (only about 20 people at the beginning) and none of us actually got our degree. There were a few courses that were well known for failing students to the point that most students had to take it 2, 3 or even more times before finally passing. One year they changed a law which basically expelled you automatically if you failed 2 times so my entire class dropped out. The next semester the pandemic started so yeah, fun times.

Answer 4

Berlin, Germany: 50-60% fail the class. The bell curve looks quite opposite than it should. Few talented people pass,but the middle range notes are barely reached.

However,they don't recognize the problem in their teaching methods and are utterly confused with the fact that there isn't enough mathematicians on the job market or math teachers to teach in schools.

Answer 5

I studied in Spain a few years ago and I remember subjects with very low marks. We had an exam with average score of 2.1 over 10.  In another course I was the only one that passed among 20-25 students. At the end, most of these experiences happended in the first and second year.

Answer 6

PSA: There is no law of nature saying that 90% must correspond to an A, 80% to a B, and so on. It is just an idiosyncracy of American high schools that many people seem to be overly attached to. Also, getting a score 90% on a course does not mean you understand 90% of the material, whatever that may mean, and not all As are equal, and you have to be very careful when comparing grades from different institutions, especially if they're in different countries.

Answer 7

thinly relevant but in first day of first year general science, university elder told us:

look at your right

look at your left

next year only one of you will still be there

Answer 8

This one electrical engineering prof I had previously failed more than half the class one quarter. The highest grade was a B+. The students protested and were allowed to keep it off of their GPAs, but still failed. I took this class a couple years later and never felt prouder about getting a B.

Answer 9

It seems a bit brutal to expect students you know will be successful (ie some percentage of students who fail a class like this) to deal with learning this way.  

I'm curious what the effect is when you have to take a class twice.  Are you lost the whole time the first time?  Or do you feel you've learned a lot but the exam is harder than the skills you've developed?  

Either way it seems if that happens a TON it should be two semesters.  Although I suppose this is a flexible way to keep a course 1 semester for the well-prepared and 2 for those that need it!

Answer 10

Major-wise, I don't know, but I've had online (gag!) remedial math classes where *no one* passed.  Surprise, students who are bad at "school" aren't ready to handle self-directed study.

On-ground/in-person remedial classes have had a 30% or so DFW rate for me.  Those who pass, however, nearly always pass the transfer-level courses they've continued into, so I'm doing something right.

For my more advanced classes, it's not uncommon for me to have a 100% pass rate.  I've weeded out the ones who can't handle it in earlier classes.  This past semester I finished a 2-year engineering math sequence and frankly, the class was harder than any I'd taught before.  At first they were upset about that, then the realization that I only did it because I knew they could handle it sunk in.