I imagine that it is very difficult to establish fail rates. However here are a couple of ways i can imagine it being possible:
- sometimes course conveners may state the fail rate for a particular course in the introductory lecture (especially when it is notoriously high)
- If all assessment grades are released on blackboard (or whatever you guys call course websites), someone who has too much time, and is probably too proud, could easily equate the fail/pass rate with simple stat software - more likely excel.
-I'm sure there are other ways, furthermore there are probably unusual or rare occurrences when it is made public (for e.g. I knew of someone who failed a law course then emailed the course convener in a state. Hoping to console, the convener told the person they were in the 60% who failed that course).
-so yeah, you could probably do statistical analysis to work out probabilities (re - z-scores, normal distribution - to get probability) - but over all, I'd say you're pretty correct when you assume it's speculation.
- finally regarded any established rate -they're not set in stone, I'm sure there is reasonably variance year to year (re changing lecturers , tutors, assessment items etc.)
P.S - if you're doing arts or whatever, who cares what the fail/pass rate is in a course. no one cares what your GPA is, unless you want to be an academic or are really crazy about doing honours. I can't see why you'd care - as far as I can tell it's only really in law that your GPA has the ability to ultimately limit your career options.
well i don't know why i've written this..... but.... the end.