New target: "Course grades will not follow normal distribution"

Most of the targets we currently support are intended to help improve success rates for all students, and define "success" as variations on course completion (continued activity, completion criteria, competencies, etc.) However, there are other legitimate priorities held by some institutions. In general, we can categorise institutions as having one or (usually) more of the following educational priorities: Academic, Pragmatic, Individualist, Idealist. To date, our models have fallen into the "Pragmatic" category.

The "Academic" model of education emphasises that the most academically qualified students should be identified and encouraged to pursue advanced study and careers in scholarship and teaching. This model accepts that student "success" is likely to fall on a normal curve.

This target calculates the "goodness of fit" of final grades on the normal distribution.

The analysable for this target is the site and the sample is the course. During the training process, previously completed courses are analysed and the normality of their distributions is calculated. Course-level indicators (including actions taken during the course delivery) are used to construct a model. This model is then used to make predictions about the final distribution of grades in currently running courses.