Inquiry Commission Says Kiely Gave Edge to Some

The Commission of Inquiry yesterday reported that Robert J. Kiely, professor of English and master of Adams House, gave students at an Adams House review session an "unfortunate" advantage on the final exam in his fall term course.

In a 12-page report on its investigation of the fairness of the exam in English 166, "The Novel Since 1945," the commission said it was "regrettable" that Kiely revealed the general format of the exam and three specific questions. But the commission recommended no corrective action by the Faculty on students' final grades in the course.

The students who knew the information Kiely revealed before the exam--perhaps as much as 40 per cent of the class-averaged about one-third of a grade higher on the exam than the rest of the class, the commission reported.

The report is the first the commission has published in response to charges against a single Faculty member.

Kiely yesterday called the report "very fair and very thorough" and said the one-third-of-a-grade margin is "insignificant."

He said he made a mistake in not informing the entire English 166 class about the review session.

Giving Out Questions

However, Kiely said he "would still give out sample exam questions to a review session, but the better way is to make sure the whole class knows about it."

Dean Rosovsky said yesterday that since the report recommends no Faculty action, it does not need his or the Faculty's approval.

"I'm perfectly satisfied with the report. The only action for me to take is to make sure this doesn't happen again, and I think this report accomplished that," Rosovsky said.

The report recommended that "all officers of instruction will henceforth bear in mind that information pertaining to forthcoming examinations should be provided only under circumstances that assure the entire class fair access to the information."

The commission distributed the report to all Faculty members and placed copies in the Houses.

The commission reached its conclusion that students with advance information did better on the exam by conducting a statistical study of performances on the exam, on a midterm test in the course and on a paper by two groups of students--35 who the commission knew had the advance information, and over 200 others.

Slightly Worse

The group with advance information did slightly worse on the midterm and the paper than the rest of the class, but on the exam they did one-third of a grade better--the difference between an A-and a B+.

However, the commission warned that the results of the survey may be "contaminated" since not all of the people in the class with advance information about the exam were in the advance-information group in the survey.

The commission began its investigation in February in response to a complaint from three students in the course, who asked the commission to recommend "that the results of the examination be invalidated in the determination of final grades in the course."

Philip E. Clapp III '75, one of the students who filed the complaint, said last night he is "basically satisfied with what the commission did" and "not disappointed that they didn't ask that the exam be annulled."

"They did basically what we were asking for--they made clear that when teachers give out information about an exam they should be sure to give it to the whole class," Clapp said.

David L. Johnson '74, a member of the commission, said yesterday that "nobody we talked to wanted a re-examination" in the course and that "we couldn't pursue corrective action without exact data" on who had the advance information