27 January 2026
H.G.
By email
: [FYI request #33212 email]
Dear H.G.
OIA 25.400 Postgraduate Psychology Grade Distribution
I refer to the Official Information Act (the Act) request dated 10
December 2025
regarding Postgraduate
Psychology Grade Distribution. You have specifical y requested:
Could you please provide detailed grade distribution information for all postgraduate psychology papers across
semesters one and two from 2023 2024 and 2025?
On 17 December 2025, the Information and Records Management (IRM) team asked for further clarification
regarding the request:
In triaging your request, if you have any specific details that you are interested in regarding grade distributions
- e.g. number of students in the course, mean or median grade - please let us know what these are.
You responded on the same day:
Number of students, minimum and maximum grades, mean and median grades, and if possible the number of
students achieving each letter grade would be very helpful.
Where a course has five or less students in it, the overal pass rate of the course has been provided in lieu of
the grade distribution. This is to protect the privacy of those in these smal er courses under s 9(2)(a) of the Act.
It is in the public interest that individuals are not identifiable when providing information about course
numbers.
Where a course has six or more students in it, where there are five or less students in a particular grade, the
actual number is not provided, rather a range of less than or equal to five (≤5). This is to protect the
individual’s privacy under s 9(2)(a) of the Act. It is in the public interest that individuals are not identifiable
when providing information about grades.
There are instances where if looked at in conjunction with the total number of grades attained for that course,
a category where less than or equal to five students have achieved a particular grade could be worked out.
Therefore, in these instances, the total number of grades have not been provided under s 9(2)(a), to protect
the privacy of the students in those smal er categories. It is in the public interest that individuals are not
identifiable when providing information about course numbers.
To obtain the mean of the letter grades the Grade Point Average (GPA) value for each grade was used. The
median letter grade was determined by the order of the GPA value corresponding to each letter. Some courses
do not have letter grades, where the option are Pass, Fail or Withdraw. For completeness, these have also
been included. For further information about the grading scale at UC, please se
e here
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision. Information about
how to make a complaint is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
Yours sincerely
Information and Records Management
