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Do Grades Have Absolute Meaning? An Experiment on Majority Judgment

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  • Théo Delemazure

    (LAMSADE - Laboratoire d'analyse et modélisation de systèmes pour l'aide à la décision - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres)

  • Roberto Brunetti

    (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon - Saint-Etienne - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - EM - EMLyon Business School - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UL2 UFR SEG - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UFR de Sciences économiques et de gestion - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2)

  • Antoinette Baujard

    (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon - Saint-Etienne - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - EM - EMLyon Business School - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne)

  • Sylvain Bouveret

    (Fondation Grenoble INP, UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes)

Abstract

Whether in education, performance reviews, or elections, grades serve as a tool for assessment, yet the universality of their meanings remain an open question. When voting under majority judgment, voters assign verbal grades such as "excellent, very good, good, fairly good, acceptable, insufficient, to reject" to each candidate. The meaning of these grades should be clear and consistent to every voter. Balinski and Laraki (2011) call it "universal language" and claim that the grade labels convey absolute meaning. This paper explores the concept of "absolute meaning". We conducted an online experiment (N=1955) where participants voted for French presidential candidates under majority judgment with different grade scales. We find that the grade distributions obtained by candidates are strongly impacted by the grade scales used by voters. Therefore, the data rejects the assertion that grades convey absolute meaning.

Suggested Citation

  • Théo Delemazure & Roberto Brunetti & Antoinette Baujard & Sylvain Bouveret, 2025. "Do Grades Have Absolute Meaning? An Experiment on Majority Judgment," Working Papers hal-05114129, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-05114129
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05114129v1
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