Thursday, March 05, 2009

The Whininess Quotient

The Whininess Quotient (or WQ) of a class of students is defined to be the dimensionless quantity

(number of questions asked about how marks are assigned)
---------------------------------------------------------
(number of questions asked about content of the course)


The WQ can be classified as follows:

WQ < 1/2: Your class really cares about the material! Congratulations!

1/2 ≤ WQ < 2: Caution: whiners are beginning to dominate the conversation.

2 ≤ WQ < &infin: It's going to be a long semester.

WQ = ∞: Time to look for another university.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could this be an age issue?

I have 6-8 years on most of my fellow students and grading questions, if brought up at all, are invariably brought up by the younger in the class.

Anonymous said...

I don't think it's simply age related. It's primarily an issue of the students' understanding of their role in the course. Those who see the coursework as means to getting knowledge are less likely to get obsessed about grading methods. Those who see the course (or every course) as an obstacle to their ultimate goal of getting a diploma will focus on what to do to improve their (already slim) chances of passing.

paul01 said...

Btw, is it true you use the "stairs method"?

(Just kidding)

Takis Konstantopoulos said...

\newcommand{\WQ}{\text{WQ}}

This posting hurts me. I work in a place where $\WQ=\infty$.

Anonymous said...

the dynamic programming assignment was marked too harsh! grrr...

WQ goes up.

Jit Bose said...

To try to reduce whininess, maybe you can offer that (1/WQ)% (up to a maximum of say 5 or 10%) will be added to your final grade.

Anonymous said...

@Takis: I have to say that you could improve your TeXgefühl and say
\DeclareMathOperator{\WQ}{WQ};).

With most my classes, it's usually greater than 1, but happily finite:).

Let peace be with you all