Group 6: What Are the Effects of Outside Activities on GPA?

What are the Effects of Outside Activities on GPA?

Group 6: Alex Schwan, Apryl Farlow, Jordan Nulliner
Fall 2015: EDT 180D
Mr. Gary Lewallen
December 2, 2015

Group 6: What Are the Effects of Outside Activities on GPA?

Group 6 chose the research the effects that outside activities may have on a students
GPA. The purpose for this research was to find any correlation activities that take place outside
of school might pose on GPA. Our hypothesis is that there should be a positive correlation
meaning; higher amount of time spent either working or with other extracurricular activities
would show a drop in GPA. We plan to show this by asking a few questions: How many hours do
you work at a job in a typical week? What is your accumulative GPA? What is your grade level?
How many credit hours are you currently enrolled in this semester? Approximately how many
hours do you spend working on homework per week? These questions were answer by a pool of
students throughout EDT through Google Forum. This method of obtaining data showed to be
effect since we gained a total of 191 responses. This should be sufficient in getting a diverse
range of data.
DATA
In this set of data, it is showing the population of responders divided up into their grade
levels. The purpose of this is to show where are responders are grade wise. As we can see, there
are more Freshman and Sophomore than other grade levels in our pool of responders.

Group 6: What Are the Effects of Outside Activities on GPA?

This next chart shows the average GPA by grade. Here, interestingly enough, the chart
indicates that the class with the highest GPA is in fact seniors. While other grades seem to be
beforming rather well, there isnt much difference between them.

Following this is a graph that shows the distribution of hours of homework done per
week with class level. Not surprising, nevertheless, Seniors came out on top for this category as
well. There is a steady incline from Sophomores to seniors in the amount they indicate for hours
of homework per week. There already seems to be an interesting correlation with more time
spend doing homework and higher GPA levels.

Group 6: What Are the Effects of Outside Activities on GPA?

Next, is a graph that shows the amount of credit hours taken by grade level. Here this
graph indicates a rather small correlation with amount of credits taken and GPA level.
Throughout all classes, the number of credits taken is rather steady at around 12 credits.

Finally, this graph compares average hours worked with average GPA by class. Also
included, is the total distribution by class. The blue bar shows the number in each class, red bar
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Group 6: What Are the Effects of Outside Activities on GPA?

shows Hours worked, while the yellow bar is the average GPA. Interestingly enough, there
doesnt appear to be any correlation with increased hours worked and GPA level. It appears that
the GPA throughout classes, is around 3.0 while the hours worked, is steadily increasing.

Analysis
To conclude this, the numbers indicate that our hypothesis wasnt true. In fact, there
seems to be no correlation at all with an increase time worked and GPA. Likewise, the seniors,
who indicated that they worked the most as well as had the most amount of time spend doing
homework; have relatively the same GPA as other classes.
Even though, our hypothesis may not have reflected reality in this case, outside activities
as well as work load, has to be more stressful than not. This may not be reflected in GPA;
however, if we had asked question regarding their stress levels or feelings of anxiety, then
perhaps we would see a stronger correlation. Again, I think we approached this the wrong way.

Group 6: What Are the Effects of Outside Activities on GPA?

Maybe if we had asked students about stress instead of GPA, then we could get more relevant
results that could show a correlation.