Online Access to Grades: Is it Hurting Students?

As many know, students have availability to a lot of things online these days. This includes school work, answers to any questions they may have, and grades. While the internet has given students a wide supply of great information, there can be some bad. Things such as OnCourse or PowerSchool are ways that students can see their grades as soon as they are updated online. But is this really helping students or just hurting them?

A lot of students tend to be obsessed with their grades, even going as far as to check their grades online once to twice a day. Back when these websites were unavailable, students could have to wait months to see their final grades; now students can see them with a few clicks of a button.

While seeing grades immediately may be great for some students if they are struggling in a class, it can hurt others as they tend to be too obsessed. At that point all the student is thinking about is checking their grade and getting it up to where they want it. The student is no longer thinking about learning in the classroom but instead on memorizing all the information so that they can pass the upcoming test, thus boosting up their grade.

While these sites do have positives, as students can understand what they should improve when it comes to school, it does have negatives, by making students obsess over the grades and not focus on actual learning.

So what is your opinion? are these sites truly helpful, or do they just hurt students in the end?