What is the effect of class start time on GPA?

Group A6

Anna Duffy, Alex Willbanks, Charity Riggs

EDT 180A

April 25th, 2018

 What is the effect of class start time on GPA? A6

Introduction:

For our group research project, we chose to study what the effect of class start time is on

students’ GPAs. We used a Google Doc form to collect data from 144 people in other EDT

classes. The questions we asked; their current GPA, year of study, and how many credits they

were taking overall. In addition to the start time of their earliest class, midday class, and latest

classes, as well as their respective grades in each class.

Discussion:

In order to fully comprehend the results of our research project, we divided the

information we gathered into multiple charts. For our first graph, we based it off of our

respondents’ years of study. We included freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, graduate

students, and post-bacc students. We had about 78 freshmen participate in our survey, which

was the most out of any other year of study. This is due to the fact that most people who take

EDT 180 are freshmen students. We did have responses from other years of study as well, with

about 25 sophomores, 13 juniors, and a few graduate students. We did not have any post-bacc

students respond to our survey.

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 What is the effect of class start time on GPA? A6

Next, we created a chart based on our respondent’s GPAs. We grouped GPAs from 4.00

to 5.00, 3.00 to 3.99, 2.00 to 2.99, 1.00 to 1.99, and 0.00 to 0.99. The majority of our

respondents had overall GPAs between 3.00 and 3.99, with about 98 responses. About 14

respondents had GPAs between 4.00 and 5.00, while 26 respondents had GPAs between 2.00 and

2.99. Only 3 respondents had GPAs between 1.00 and 1.99, and only one respondent had a GPA

between 0.00 and 0.99.

Our next chart shows the percentage of each letter grade that our respondents received in

their classes earlier than 9am. We asked our respondents to answer the questions in our survey

in military time, in order to make the data easier to analyze. This is why our charts are all in

military time. 62.5% of our respondents earned the letter grade A and 25% of our respondents

earned the letter grade B in their classes before 9am. 6.3% of our respondents received the letter

grade C in classes earlier than 9am. Another 6.3% of our respondents received the letter grade D

in their classes before 9am.

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 What is the effect of class start time on GPA? A6

For our next chart, it represents the percentage of each letter grade our respondents

earned in their classes between 9am and 8pm. 54.4% of our respondents earned the letter grade

A in their classes later that 9am. 35.3% of our respondents earned the letter grade B and 10.3%

earned the letter grade C in their classes later than 9am. None of our respondents earned the

letter grade D in their classes between 9am and 8pm.

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 What is the effect of class start time on GPA? A6

This next chart represents the average GPA of students in classes before 9am. Only 9.4%

of our respondents had average GPAs greater than 4, while 71.9% of our respondents had an

average GPA greater than 3. 15.6% of our respondents had average GPAs greater than 2 and

only 3.1% of our respondents had average GPAs greater than 1.

Our next chart represents the average GPAs of students in classes after 9am. 6.0% of

our respondents earned average GPAs greater than 4. 61.4% of our respondents earned average

GPAs greater than 3. 27.7% of our respondents had average GPAs greater than 2 and only 3.6%

of our respondents had average GPAs greater than 1.

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 What is the effect of class start time on GPA? A6

In conclusion, the trends of students’ grades in classes indicated that the students who

enrolled in classes before 9am had overall lower grades. 12.6% of students taking classes before

9am received either the letter grade of C or D, with 6.3% of students receiving the letter grade D.

In comparison, the students who enrolled in classes after 9am did not receive any Ds, but 10.3%

did receive the letter grade C. Also, the trends of students’ GPAs indicated that GPAs were

overall higher before 9am. Only 18.7% of students had a GPA of 2.99 or lower, compared with

32.5% of students receiving a GPA of 2.99 or lower in classes after 9am. 81.3% of students in

classes before 9am received a GPA of 3.00 or higher, compared with 66.4% of students in

classes later than 9am who received a GPA of 3.00 or higher.