It's easy to feel like a victim of injustice when you get a bad grade. Often it's not true, and it's just a way to justify ourselves, and not face the real reasons for our failures. In some cases, however, there are actually variables that go beyond study and commitment that can still influence the results of tasks and exams. For example, the initial of our surname: research published in recent weeks in the journal Management Science reveals that those who have a surname that begins with the first letters of the alphabet systematically tend to get slightly higher grades, and vice versa, a surname that begins with the last letters of the alphabet slightly reduces the grades you receive.
The study, carried out by a team of researchers from the University of Michigan, was carried out using data from an e-learning platform used for university-level exam assessments. It analyzed the results of over 30 million students, verifying the association between the grades received, the surname initials of the examinees, and the order in which the homework was corrected. By default, in fact, the platform presents the texts to the reviewer in alphabetical order, and to choose a different system, i.e. a randomized order or an ascending alphabetical order, the professor must manually select the option. This, obviously, means that in most cases the ratings proceed in descending alphabetical order.
The results of the analysis revealed that with the default option activated, students whose last name begins with one of the first five letters of the alphabet have on average a score 0.3 points higher (out of 100) than when Ratings are done in random order. Those with a surname starting with the last three, 0.3 points less. Checking the situation in the small group of reviewers who prefer to evaluate the calculations starting from the bottom of the alphabet, the results were the same, but in reverse: higher marks for the last letters, and lower for the first ones.
The phenomenon was found to be independent of the subject examined, although more marked in the case of the humanistic disciplines, and less so for the more scientific ones. Probably – write the authors of the study – due to the less rigorous nature of the former, which leaves more room for interpretation by those who have to give a vote.
According to the authors of the research, the cause of the phenomenon is most likely to be found in the tiredness that grips anyone who finds themselves evaluating the homework of many students in rapid succession. Boredom and fatigue, in short, would gradually steal the objectivity of teachers, who, having reached the end of the alphabet, would involuntarily find themselves less well disposed towards students' errors, thus overestimating their seriousness.