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I always find myself in a difficult situation on the rage of students who are upset about their marks they just received. I feel it is kind of difficult to reply to students' emails that sound very angry. Especially when they first receive their marks.

  1. Why did I get this MARK!
  2. How could I get this mark, when my colleague got higher!
  3. I will provide my mark to the dean! (some already done so!)

I know that this is not uncommon, but I feel we have the duty to know how to deal psychologically with this behaviour.

How do you deal with this situation?

Some say, do not reply to this email before at least a week so that the student acknowledges and time for them to relax.

The issue is that I will have to deal with these same students in a module next term and I am worried about how they will portray me.

Sursula
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Anonymous
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    The issue is that I do deal with these students on term 2 module - I don't understand what you mean. Can you please explain this issue? – Kimball Jan 24 '21 at 20:31
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    why don't we just not let students see how their papers were graded? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/144597/do-students-have-the-right-to-see-how-their-papers-were-graded – BCLC Jan 25 '21 at 06:06
  • One tool you can use is a syllabus policy that students should wait 24 hours after receiving a grade before sending a grade-related email. That gives the student time to calm down on their end and (perhaps) write a more considered email. – TaliesinMerlin Jan 25 '21 at 15:54
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    Very similar, if not duplicate question: What to do about "grade grubbers?" – henning Jan 26 '21 at 14:29
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    @Kimball, I believe the OP means that the student will be in their class next term. – Damila Jan 26 '21 at 19:10
  • @Damila My guess was also something like this, but I don't understand how this is relevant to responding to these emails. (The OP says that this is "the issue".) – Kimball Jan 26 '21 at 21:09
  • @Kimball, obviously I am not the OP but my impression is that they are concerned about having angry students/ an already antagonistic relationship in their next class. – Damila Jan 26 '21 at 21:49
  • It seems like a strong tone to me, to say the least. Is this speaking style normal where you are? Or are you perceived as young/inexperienced/weak? – user111388 Dec 15 '23 at 17:15

5 Answers5

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When dealing with angry students, your number one priority should be to de-escalate the situation and bring it back to a more factual ground. That means you want to:

  • Stay calm. Even if you are getting agitated yourself, you should never let it show through in your answer (easier via email than personally, but the same principle applies independently of the medium). I tend to opt for a more formal tone than what I usually use, mostly because I have found more formal phrasing harder to be misunderstood as dismissive (your milage may vary).
  • Provide short, to the point, answers. Answer the student's query or complaint politely, but don't get pre-emptively defensive and don't overly detailedly explain your reasoning. The more you write or say, the more an unhappy student will find to be upset about. There is a time and place to give a student detailed feedback, but when they are currently raging isn't it.
  • Stay with the facts. Scrub all subjectivity from your own answer. You want to bring the conversation to a place where you are talking about specific assessment results (exam questions, assignment tasks, etc.) rather than "I felt I did better", and the more you are using subjective statements in your own answer the more the student will feel validated that his own subjective understanding of the situation is as valid as yours.
  • Require the student to provide concrete, factual arguments. Once you bring the discussion to a more factual level, you should ask the student why, specifically, they disagree with their grade. Are there specific assessment results they feel were wrongly graded? Are they unhappy with how you aggregated the assessments? Once you are discussing on this level, it becomes easier to both, convince a student that their grade is correct according to the framework, and see cases where your framework is indeed unfair (or can at least be perceived as such).
  • Answer, but don't answer too quickly. Especially when receiving complaints via email: avoid the temptation to immediately answer questions by upset students. Give it a day, this will allow both you and the student a chance to calm down. A little delay in your interaction will also motivate the student to think more carefully about what they are actually writing, since a non-question like "How could I get this mark, when my colleague got higher" just means longer delay for them.
  • Remember that student's don't have to agree with their grade. At the end of the day, not all students will be happy with their grade, and even after you have explained your reasoning not all students will be convinced. That's ok. You and the student don't have to agree on the final grade. There is a process in place what, if anything, students can do to further escalate a grade dispute (I don't know if that includes sending a mail to the dean at your department, in mine emailing the dean about a grade dispute would mostly result in a confused dean).
xLeitix
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    In some cases I have replied like this: "If, at the end of the semester, you believe one additional point on this exam will change your semester grade, please let me know and I'll look at it again." No student has ever taken me up on that. – Bob Brown Jan 24 '21 at 17:47
  • Also, when it seemed like it might be a problem, I have implemented a regrade request limit, e.g., 2 requests per student per term. – Kimball Jan 24 '21 at 20:33
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    @BobBrown Sure, but recognize it might just be a nice way of saying "I'm still marking this wrong." There's no way for me to know if it could have made a difference. I had a professor tell me this after agreeing my answer was right, just so he didn't have to go correct the grade! Could it have made a difference? I don't know. The only info I got at the semester end was "B". – Edward Jan 24 '21 at 22:42
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    @Edward That seems to be an issue with your university, not a general one. Our students receive precise percentage and raw marks, so can tell precisely how many extra marks would make a difference to their grade. – user3482749 Jan 24 '21 at 23:11
  • About speed, I answer these quickly since 1) otherwise I'll forget, and 2) I don't want the student to worry "ohmygod -- I can't believe I sent an obscentity-ridden tirade. I'm so screwed". A short "here are your scores" also says that I understand and am not angry. – Owen Reynolds Jan 24 '21 at 23:27
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    why don't we just not let students see how their papers were graded? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/144597/do-students-have-the-right-to-see-how-their-papers-were-graded – BCLC Jan 25 '21 at 06:06
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    is it possible that 1st world universities don't have like a particular procedure in the 1st place? well my 3rd world university did and does, but apparently some 1st world universities don't even let students see how their papers were graded why don't we just not let students see how their papers were graded... https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/144597/do-students-have-the-right-to-see-how-their-papers-were-graded – BCLC Jan 25 '21 at 06:08
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    @BCLC at least in Sweden there would be no legal basis for this. Also, it would arguably make these discussions even worse, since then a subjective "I felt like I did better than a 3" would be all that students could go by. – xLeitix Jan 25 '21 at 07:00
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    @OwenReynolds I used to do this as well, but after getting sucked multiple times into heated nonsense debates that didn't actually move the discussion forward in any way I decided that it's better to force a more deliberate pace on these debates. And, frankly, having to mull for a few hours over whether their explanation mark riddled email was indeed a great idea can be a healthy educational experience for some students. – xLeitix Jan 25 '21 at 07:15
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    This is good advice, but I think one key piece is missing: having a good grading framework. A good framework allows you to stick to the facts and stay objective as they advised, because there actually are facts to stick to. You can just point out "you got question X wrong, costing you Y points." – ObscureOwl Jan 25 '21 at 09:01
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    @EdwardOn the first day of the semester my students had the formula by which their final grade would be calculated. They had graded work, except the final exam, returned. The course management system kept all grades, including the final exam. So, the student could absolutely know whether one point would make a difference, and if a student with a grade of C were one point away from a B on a potentially arguable question, I'd give the student the point. – Bob Brown Jan 25 '21 at 14:13
  • I generally agree with this answer, except point 4. I'd advise to avoid asking questions to the students in responses; I'd state my reasons and then implicitly communicate that the matter is closed for me. I'd never encourage them to keep on discussing. (Of course some will do that anyway, but...) – Christian Hennig Jan 27 '21 at 11:19
  • @Lewian Yes and no. I also am certainly not fishing for additional complaints, but if a student is abstractly expressing dissatisfaction with their grade asking what exactly they are dissatisfied with actually speeds up the process. – xLeitix Jan 27 '21 at 13:54
  • @BobBrown Challenge Accepted. – SnakeDoc Jan 27 '21 at 18:25
  • I would add a final point: look up whoever is responsible for resolving an escalated staff/student disputes and, if a student email crosses the threshold from "angry" to "threatening and/or abusive" language, write a brief factual response about the grade and cc the relevant person or office when sending it. You should not need to fear your students. – coffee_into_plots Dec 15 '23 at 11:32
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Your first step should be to make sure the mark is accurate before you reply.

I once had a student complain about getting an "F". I looked in my gradebook and saw that the student had a "B"! My first thought was that I had written the wrong grade on the report sent to the registrar's office. I went, with the student, to the registrar's. There was a "B" on the report I had sent. The error had been made at the registrar's office. Of course, the student's grade was changed to "B".

cag51
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HallsofIvy
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    Interesting situation, but I'm not sure that's relevant here. If the instructor assigned a lower grade by mistake, fixing the mistake will usually defuse any student anger. – Elodin Jan 25 '21 at 00:09
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    This isn't really an answer. It's a relevant anecdote, but doesn't tell the OP how to deal with the kinds of emails they mention. – terdon Jan 26 '21 at 13:32
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    Welcome to Academia.SE. You had gotten a number of flags for not providing a "real answer" to the question. So, I suggested adding a sentence to explain what your actual advice is -- feel free to edit this paragraph if I distorted your meaning. – cag51 Jan 26 '21 at 14:21
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    BTW - I once had a similar situation. Two pieces of software disagreed about how to alphabetize names beginning with O', and so three grades in the O section were transposed. As luck would have it, this section of the gradebook included one of the best students and one of the weakest. That's the only time I've ever had a student tell me "I think there was a grading mistake that will turn my F into an A" and be completely correct. The student whose A turned into an F was presumably less pleased, but they never said anything to me. – cag51 Jan 26 '21 at 16:07
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While @xLeitix's answer pretty much sums it up, I would like to add that

"A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it."

Students complain about marks if either

a. Your rubrics/grading criteria are unclear or inconsistently applied

b. The students perceive you as pliant.

Of course, there are those students who will just complain for complaining's sake or with the hopes of you just not wanting the hassle of dealing with them. Those are, in my experience, a very small (albeit vocal) minority. Moreover, since their complaints are rarely justified, you can easily handle them.

If you handle (a) well, then students are much less likely to complain about you, and would greatly appreciate the transparency. I make my rubrics clear-cut and public, and ask students to refer to specific rubric items in their regrade requests. I tell them in advance that I do not grade feelings or intentions, just what actually made it to the assessment paper. Make sure that this grading policy is public on week 1; perhaps even get students to acknowledge reading it (say via an online form).

Students won't perceive you as pliant if you fix (a) and stick to it. I actively encourage students who threaten me with going to a higher authority to follow through on their threat (politely), something along the lines of

"You are well within your rights to take this matter up with the dean, and if you feel like you have been mistreated in any way, then by all means do so".

No one has gone on to complain yet. They know they have no standing.

Given that we are teaching in unusual times, you can (and should!) be lenient when the situation warrants it, as long as you are consistent about this as well. If one student complains about an inconsistency or possible interpretation and you find their argument valid, go back and fix it for everyone. If a student asks for an extension for no particular reason, grant it for everyone.

Spark
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    As another aside, perhaps it's my own personality, but I find anger much easier to handle than genuine sadness/panic. I reciprocate hostility with (icy, legalistic) hostility. A student who cries in my office about failing a class and not knowing how to break it to their parents is much likelier to get my support (perhaps not a good thing, but nobody's perfect...) – Spark Jan 25 '21 at 16:25
  • "I actively encourage students who threaten me with going to a higher authority to follow through on their threat" >> depending on national and local academic cultures, this might not be a good approach. There are places where students can bend the rules if they just ring the proper buzzwords. As you said, these are "unusual times", thus easier to become an "exception"... – Ramon Melo Jan 25 '21 at 18:53
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    Why would you want to discourage your students from exercising their rights? I don’t have the power to stop them, and indicating that it concerns me sends the wrong message – Spark Jan 25 '21 at 19:57
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    "They know they have no standing." Unless their parents are politicians, friends with the dean or have a lot of money, unfortunately...(in many countries, luckily not everywhere) – user111388 Jan 25 '21 at 22:20
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    I'm not suggesting that. There's some middle ground between "discouraging" and "actively encouraging" that can be used to dial down the hostility - which should be the goal regardless of the student following through or not -, while still demonstrating your indifference. – Ramon Melo Jan 25 '21 at 22:22
  • I think we're on the same page. I agree that egging them on (or being generally mean) is a bad idea, and if that's implied then I'll revise my wording. I will admit that students who believe they're my boss because they're paying tuition rub me the wrong way and get worse reactions, perhaps bordering on aggressive, but - do as I say, not as I do! – Spark Jan 26 '21 at 16:21
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    @user111388 luckily I teach at a public university, where everyone is treated equally badly! – Spark Jan 26 '21 at 18:11
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As a high-school student currently, (and I've gotten my fair share of Cs and Fs), I have always been more accepting of my grade (and less upset about it) when my teacher would explain why he/she gave me that grade, and then give feedback about what I could change next time I had to take an assessment in the same course. By doing this, you do two things. 1.) You tell them what they can do differently so that they have something to work towards in the next semester. (And often based on this feedback, they will do better the next time.) And 2.) They see that you care about your students and their work, by taking out time from your day to give them feedback/explanations. This may also inadvertently make them pay more attention in class/try to do better on their work. (I have found that I have learned and retained more from teachers that care than from those who don't.) This shouldn't ruin your reputation with your students, as they may still be mad at you, but they would at least understand why their grade happened the way it did.

This is probably not the opinion which you are seeking, but I think that it covers a unique perspective of the question, not covered in the other answers.

Joe Kerr
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  • This sounds more like advice to OP's students than to OP themselves. OP wanted to know how to deal with students who haven't taken this advice, and have e-mailed them with hostility instead of genuine curiosity and a desire to learn. – Lou Jan 27 '21 at 10:54
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I understand that at the moment this is the grade that reflects the student's efforts and this is the grade they deserve. In this case, I would explain to them using facts why they received this grade.

However, in the future, you may consider emailing students when they start to fall behind in your class. It personally gives me no pleasure to see a student not succeed in my class. When I have had such students, I have reached out to them via email. Some did not respond. One responded that they were suffering from depression due to the pandemic and asked to redo the assignment and was then able to catch up with the rest of the material.

It then helps to use this as evidence. You have a paper trail showing that you tried to help the student and they did not accept the help so they definitely deserve the low grade.

confused
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