Does an Association Exist Between the Number of Extracurricular Activities a Student Participates in and Grade Point Average?

Introduction

This research project is meant to explore the relationship between the number of extracurricular activities a student is involved in and their grade point average (GPA), with my independent variable being the number of extracurricular activities that students participate in and the dependent variable being GPA. I feel that this topic is important for college students because it may be something that helps college students improve their grades. From my experience so far at college, I have found that many college students feel that they are overly lazy due to the less structured daily schedule, and a lower frequency of class meetings. This laziness leads to procrastination and decreased academic performance. If students had more to do in a day, they would be less lazy, and be more empowered to do work because of the fact that they would have less time to procrastinate on academic work. If students had more to do in a day, they could increase their productivity and therefore improve their grades. This topic is important to the broader topic of college students attitudes and behaviors because this topic could provide evidence of the importance of changing behavioral activities for the rest of their adult life.

My research question is, "Do students who participate in extracurricular activities, which include: student associations, Greek life, and any other clubs or activities on campus, have greater academic success than students who don't participate in extracurricular activities?" My hypothesis is that students who participate in extracurricular activities have greater academic success than students who don't participate in extracurricular activities. I hypothesize that there will be a positive linear relationship between number of extracurricular activities and GPA, meaning that students who participate in more extracurricular activities will receive higher grades. My theory is based on the quote by Lucile Ball. Ball said that, "If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do." I believe in this quote because I think that someone who is diligent and gets involved on campus is likely to be someone who is just as ambitious when it comes to their academics. I also think that students who get involved have a desire to become better rounded people and to prove that they did more in college than focus on their academics. Those students who are apathetic are going to have less academic success. Also, my own exceptional academic success coupled with lots of extracurricular activities in my schedule has led to my commitment to this idea. Furthermore, students who have the conscientiousness to get involved in extracurricular activities have the conscientiousness to do well in school. In conclusion, I expect to find a positive relationship between number of extracurricular activities and grades because I hypothesize that increased involvement leads to a more active and productive lifestyle which translates into better grades.

Data and Method

For this survey I used exploratory research. The reason that this research is exploratory is because I really don't know what kind of impact the number of extracurricular activities a student participates in has on their grade point average.

The methodological approach that I took was quantitative. The reason for this is because it was the fastest and easiest way to collect the data for my research. The quantitative approach taken was in the form of a survey where the answers were all closed ended questions with the response options in number form and consisted of descriptive univariate and bivariate statistics.

For the survey design, I interviewed a quota sample of 312 undergraduate University students with at least second year standing. The interview covered a variety of topics related to academic success. The survey was cross-sectional and it covered a variety of topics related to academic success such as: amount of study time, frequency of going out, and amount of financial aid received. The reason it is cross-sectional and not longitudinal is because all of our data was collected at one point in time. When surveying, I identified and chose my respondents by going to common undergraduate locations.

The study was a non-probability sample. The type of non-probability sample was quota. This meant that I was required to get data from a set number of certain types of respondents with regard to certain characteristics such as class standing, gender, race-ethnicity, and home college at SU.

The independent variable measured during this survey was number of extracurricular activities that students are involved in. The survey measure that was used on the survey was, "How many extra-curricular organizations (excluding jobs and sports) at SU do you actively participate in this semester?" The ordinal level variable was measured using a closed-ended question that provided five response options that included: 0, 1, 2-3, 4-5 and 6 or more. I think that this measure of my independent variable was reliable because the answers would be consistent every time the respondent answered the question. The reason the results would be consistent is because the question is mutually exclusive and exhaustive. The measure is also valid because it is measuring exactly what I want to study which is the number of extracurricular activities the student participates in. The question specifically asks how many extracurricular activities the student is involved in by specifically defining what I mean by extracurricular activities, by excluding sports and jobs, and thereby making every other activity participated in classified as an extracurricular activity. There were no missing variables for my independent variable but there were some improbable cases. There were 9 values that were .00. What this means is that these researchers entered 0 into SPSS. This is clearly an erroneous variable because 0 was not one of the response options, because the response options only range from 1 to 5. The mistake they might have made was, if they saw that the respondent chose response option 1 indicating that they did not participate in any extracurricular activities, they may have made the mistake of putting 0, even though they should have put the response option 1, which indicated 0 extracurricular activities. My guess is that this was most likely the error that was made for these 9 values. Prior to examining the cross-tabulation, I did some recoding. I recoded the 9 values that were .00 into the response category 1.

The dependent variable that I measured during this survey was GPA. This variable is an interval-ratio