Seasonality of GPA
Loading...
Date
2012-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
This paper is on the seasonality of GPA. It is exceptionally under-researched, which is odd because of its potential applicability. The primary purpose of this paper is to build a framework on which future research may be conducted concerning the determinants of GPA through an intra-year lens. This may be of interest to universities, as knowing how GPA varies between seasons may be useful in their use of resources or course scheduling.
I acquired most of my data from the Center for the Study of Student Life (CSSL); the rest (precipitation) was from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The CSSL provided me with data on GPA, class rank, credit hours, ethnicity, birthplace, year, and quarter. The NOAA provided data on precipitation readings gathered at the OSU airport.
My findings were that fall and winter quarters are both negatively correlated with GPA when compared to spring quarter when using fixed-effects. Additionally, the coefficients associated with fall and winter quarters could not be proven to be statistically different from each other, so, while they are both worse than spring quarter performance, we cannot say that there’s a difference between the two.
This paper asks many questions, the most important/intriguing of which are: Why does the most recent academic year have the lowest average GPA? Why does there exist a spring quarter spike? These are very important questions, and I hope to answer them with further research.
Description
Keywords
GPA, Seasonality, Academics, Undergraduates, Quarters