Grading standards in college vary substantially across fields, especially among STEM fields that tend to give lower grades than non-STEM fields. Prior research has demonstrated that grades affect course and major choices, but less is known about how policies oriented to reduce differences in grading standards across fields affect persistence and completion in the major of choice. Using administrative data from the Florida Department of Education, this paper examines the effect of changing the grading scale from whole-letter grades to plus/minus grades on STEM major choice. It relies on a difference-in-difference framework that compares students’ outcomes before and after a grade policy change at two institutions to similar students at other institutions over the same time period. I find that a change in the grading scale significantly reduces grading differentials across fields and increases the likelihood of students graduating with a STEM degree. Although results should be interpreted cautiously given the limitations of the data, they represent the first direct, quasi-experimental evidence regarding the effect of a grade scale change on STEM major choice.

中文翻译：

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跨领域的分级标准是否可以作为主要选择？来自佛罗里达州政策变化的证据

大学中的评分标准在各个领域之间差异很大，尤其是在STEM领域中，其成绩往往低于非STEM领域。先前的研究表明，成绩会影响课程和专业选择，但对于旨在减少跨领域的评分标准差异的政策如何影响专业选择的持久性和结业知之甚少。本文使用佛罗里达州教育局的行政数据，研究了将评分等级从全字母成绩改为正/负成绩对STEM主要选择的影响。它依赖于差异差异框架，该框架将两个机构的成绩政策变更前后的学生成绩与同期其他机构的类似学生进行比较。我发现评分等级的变化显着降低了各个领域的评分差异，并增加了学生获得STEM学位的可能性。尽管鉴于数据的局限性，应谨慎地解释结果，但它们代表了有关等级量表变更对STEM主要选择的影响的第一个直接的准实验证据。