What effects does work load have on college students’ school performance?

Group A5: Anthony Esquivias, Lauren Spielvogel, Anthony Orozco

EDT 180A

Gary Lewallen

April 22, 2019

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What effects does work load have on college students?

For our research topic, we decided to look into whether a student’s academic

workload had an effect on their average GPA. In order to collect our data, we asked ASU

students across the EDT 180 classes through Google forms five questions in order to find

whether there was a correlation between academic workload and GPA: their year, their

ASU college, whether they were a member of Barrett, the Honors College, their GPA,

how many hours they spent outside of class working on school work, and also how they

rated their time management skills (on a scale of one to ten - one being poor, ten being

great). From our survey, we got ninety-two responses, and the following charts and

analysis will attempt to answer the question as to whether there is a strong correlation

between GPA and workload, and what kind of correlation that might be.

When looking at the average GPAs for ASU’s individual colleges, data shows

that the highest average GPAs belonged to colleges that were generally connoted with

having more of a humanities focus, such as The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

(avg. 3.51), The Mary Lou Fulton Teachers’ College (avg. 3.39), and The Herberger

Institute for Design and the Arts (avg. 3.26). Lower average GPAs were connected with

colleges that are generally thought to be more scientific in focus, such as The School for

the Future of Innovation and Society (avg. 2.50), The Ira A. Fulton School of

Engineering (avg. 2.27), and The New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

(avg. 2.19). This may support the idea that grading in the field of humanities is more

subjective, whereas the grading in the S.T.E.M. field is more objective. This subjective

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grading may not be as harsh, possibly as studies in the humanities often use more

personal responses to subject material, whereas objective grading is impersonal.

In our research, we found that students with the highest GPAs were most likely to

be freshmen. There is a steady decline from year to year, with averages beginning at 3.46

for freshman, and ending with an average GPA of 2.95 for seniors, with roughly around a

0.20 drop from year to year. Graduate students had a 3.1 average GPA, falling outside of

this decline and roughly matching the same GPA as that of an undergraduate junior. This

may be due to the fact that freshmen have taken fewer credit hours, and classes are

generally easier at the 100/200 level than they are at the 300/400 level. The GPAs of

students who are further along in their degree mirror more of an accurate average,

whereas many freshmen students only have one semester to base their GPA off of,

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meaning that this data for the freshman class may not reflect their average school

performance.

When comparing the average GPAs between students who are a part of Barrett,

the Honors College and students who are not, the resulting correlation was expected.

Students who were in the honors college at ASU had a higher average GPA (avg. 3.91)

than students who were not (avg. 3.30). This may be due to the fact that Barrett students

must maintain a GPA of at least 3.25 in order to graduate with honors, placing a higher

motivation on attaining good grades. However, many of the individual responses from

students who were not a part of Barrett had GPAs that were similar to students who were

a part of Barrett. The lower average may be due to the disparity in sample size, with

eighty nine student responses indicating that they were not a part of Barrett. Only three

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What effects does work load have on college students?

student responses indicated that they were a part of Barrett, indicating that such an

average may not be as accurate than one with more students in Barrett.

This was one of the areas of our research where we did not see a strong trend

where GPA was largely affected by the question asked. According to survey responses,

the average ASU student spends around four hours working on school work outside of

class, though a majority of the students surveyed spend around two hours working on

school work outside of class. There was one response from a student indicating that

twenty-four hours were spent outside of class working on homework, which is unlikely,

but it may have swayed averages upwards. Students who spent anywhere from one to

eight hours working on homework outside of class had roughly similar GPAs (anywhere

from an average of 3.13 to 3.65). Therefore, it may be assumed that there is not a strong

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What effects does work load have on college students?

correlation between the number of hours spent on homework done and GPA, which may

have to do with varying levels of productivity within those hours spent on “homework”.

When asking students to rate their own time management skills, we found that

responses were generally around the middle of the scale (a response of one meaning that

they found their own time management skills to be poor, and a response of ten meaning

that they found their time management skills to be great), with most responses at a 5 or a

6. However, when trying to draw a correlation with GPA, we found that there was not a

strong correlation between the two, with only a 0.84 range in averages across the ten

scores (3.06 being the lowest average and 3.90 being the highest average). However, the

3.90 average was associated with a self-score of 10, whereas the 3.29 average was

associated with a self-score of only 1. The next highest average was 3.29, indicative of a

self-score of 4, not of 2 (which would have been expected). Therefore, it may be said that

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What effects does work load have on college students?

while within the scores of 1 and 10, there was an increase in GPA, the correlation is not

convincing throughout the rest of the responses. This may again have to do with the idea

of productivity, which may have been a better question to ask in our research.

In conclusion, GPA may have a correlation with work-load, but perhaps there is a

stronger correlation in what is the perceived difficulty of said work-load rather than the

amount of work that a student has to take on. This trend is stronger in areas that can be

more concretely answered, such as one’s academic college, their year, and their status

either as an honors student or a regular student. Areas where students were asked to

self-score or to estimate showed correlations that were not as strong or totally

unconvincing. Therefore, it may be said that the student with the highest GPA is most

likely a freshman majoring in humanities who is also a part of Barrett, the Honors

College. The student with the lowest GPA is most likely not a part of Barrett, is a science

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major, and is an upperclassman. However, with the anonymity of the results, it will never

be known for sure.