Correlation Between Grade Point Average and Absences
by Ignacio Suarez
Prepared for Professor Erlyn Baack
ITESM, Campus Queretaro

INTRODUCTION

With the established system, the way to represent knowledge and learning is grades. Grades are everything for a student. But there are many factors that affect the grade of a student in a class: his abilities, his interest in the course, the teaching method, his peers, the classroom, even the schedule and many others. Some of these factors have a positive effect and others a negative one, resulting in higher or lower grades.

One of the negative factors is absences. The reasons why absences have a negative effect on grades are various. If a student is not present in class, something might be explained which the student won't understand later on, he/she could miss a homework or an assignment because he/she didn't know, or maybe the student will fall behind and have a hard time catching up with the rest of the class.

An investigation was conducted to try and find studies that had been done in this respect. Some studies were found establishing the relationship between absences and grades, but only one study was found regarding a correlation. It was a study done by Levine in child development courses under different assistance policies, and it found a negative correlation (Levine 1992). This negative correlation between absences and grades means that the more absences a student has, the lower his/her grade will be, and vice versa.

When gathering information, it was a surprise to find out that no such study had been conducted at the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Campus Querétaro, giving the research more value and making it even more interesting.

THESIS

Since no such investigation had been done, the research hoped to find: (1) what the correlation would be at the ITESM, CQ, (2) if there was any significant difference between careers, and (3) the students' opinions on the subject.

RESEARCH METHOD

In order to find the correlation, whatever it might be, it is first necessary to prove a relationship between the factors GPA and Absences.

To obtain reliable information, and thus confident results, it was necessary to have a database as large as possible. To get that much information, a large number of students needed to be contacted. This represented a technical problem because it required a lot of manpower, work, and time. To resolve this drawback the information was obtained from the school itself. From the Escolar department, Alberto Dorantes provided the information containing the grades and absences from all the students in the third semester of 1996 (autumn semester of last year).

From Escolar a list of 2,713 students was received with their careers and semesters, average grades in all three partials, final average grade, and total number of absences. From this list two students were eliminated because there was an error in the information (over 200 absences), bringing the final count to 2,711.

Although the "hard numbers" came from Escolar, interviews still were needed and applied. The intention of the interviews was to know if the students were aware of the correlation between grades and absences and to get their thoughts on the subject. The interviews were done in the form of a questionnaire. Thirty of them were handed out on campus, individually, and in an effort to be as representative as possible.

The questionnaires consisted of three questions and an open opinion section at the end. The first two questions asked the students to mark their grade point average (GPA) and their total absences; the next one asked if their lowest grade was in the class with their most absences; and finally, the fourth one asked their opinion about whether their absences had anything to do with their grades.

QUESTIONNAIRE

1. What was your grade point average including all of your classes? 

_____7.0-7.5 
_____7.5-8.0 
_____8.0-8.5 
_____8.5-9.0 
_____9.0-9.5 
_____9.5-10

2. How many total absences did you have including all of your classes? 

_____10-20 
_____20-30 
_____30-40 
_____40-50 
_____50-60
_____70-80
_____80+

3. Did you have your lowest grade in the class where you had your most absences? YES or NO 

4. Do you think your absences had anything to do with your grade? YES or NO

(Please give your opinion) OPINION:

RESULTS

The information was analyzed in SPSS and Excel programs.

To prove the existence of a relation, or dependency, between absences and grades a regression analysis was conducted. A regression analysis shows the dependency of a variable (grades in this case) to an independent factor (absences). The analysis resulted in an R square of .23 which means that 23% of a grade can be explained through absences. The program gave a B value of -0.05 which means that for every absence, the grade lowers 0.05 (on a ten point scale).

GRADE POINT AVERAGE - ABSENCES

In the graph it can be seen how the grades lower when the absences increase as we move from left to right. When evaluating the average GPA for students with different numbers of absences, the relationship becomes very clear.

The GPA for all students last semester was 8.332 with 14 absences. The average score for students with 0 absences was 8.7; for students with 30 or more was 6.85; and with 40+ absences, the GPA lowered to 5.94.

A correlation analysis tries to measure the strength of a relationship between two variables through a number called correlation coefficient. The correlation coefficient is a number between +1 and -1: the closer to either number, the stronger the relationship. The sign of the number represents the slope of the relationship. A positive sign means that both grow together; a negative one, as one increases the other decreases. The correlation analysis proved a mild, but significant, correlation of -.44.

CORRELATION GRADES - ABSENCES

In this graph of the correlation between GPA and Absences, the negative slope can clearly be seen, especially on the left side. As the absences increase, there is more variation in the grades that the students get.

From 44 to 57 absences there is an irregular line. This could be explained because of the ITESM assistance policies. The students in this area could be students who have good grades, and because of that are entitled to a third week of absences. This area could also contain students in the sports programs who have a lot of absences because of the competitions.

When we get to 70 absences or more, the drop in grades is remarkable; maybe they failed some of their classes because of the excess of absences.

CORRELATION BY CAREERS

When calculating the correlation by careers, we find that some actually show a positive correlation (Maestria 0.17 and LEM 0.006), meaning that the fewer classes a student goes to, the better grades he/she gets. No logical reason could be found for this. In Maestria some classes are in the Virtual University which would lead one to think that missing a class would set a student back, but the results show the contrary.

When comparing careers in the same area, one can find careers that have different correlations. For example, IAP and IAZ (-0.32 and -0.59), and IMA and IME (-0.70 and -0.38). These differences could not be explained since the students would be very similar and a lot of teachers the same. The career with the lowest correlation is IIA (-0.09), and those with the highest correlations are IAQ (-1) and PIN (-0.79). The high correlation in IAQ could be determined by the very small number of students in it (two students). In the case of PIN it could be because these students have academic problems.

QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS

The first two questions were not necessary because of the information obtained from Escolar.

3. Did you have your lowest grade in the class where you had your most absences? 

YES 29.4% NO 70.6%

4. Do you think your absences had anything to do with your grade? 

YES 45% NO 55% 

Although most students didn't personally experience a relation between grades and absences (3rd. Question = NO 70%), almost half of them (4th Question = YES 45%) thought that the relationship existed.

Students felt that the relation is not that strong because, "You may go to all your classes, but not pay attention," or "It depends whether you study or not," so consequently, the grades depended on other factors.

Others felt that absences had other reasons: "Sometimes I didn't go to class because it was boring." "Absences were provoked because of lack of interest or other activities like social or sports." "I always skip my easier classes." These were some of the causes for not going to class.

Some more students thought that absences do affect grades because of these reasons: "If you have an absence, you lose the sequence of things." "You miss the interesting themes." "The teacher explains better than any classmate." or, "The teacher might have a different way of thinking."

From the results of the questionnaires, one can conclude that although students know of the correlation between grades and absences, they don't think it is that important. Even though absences might affect grades, they will still take some classes off to rest and relax and to socialize with their friends.

CONCLUSION

1. The research successfully found the exact correlation coefficient between grades and absences for the ITESM, Campus Querétaro, being -.44.

2. It also discovered differences between the careers on the campus, finding that some had a positive correlation (Maestria 0.17).

3. Finally, it gathered the opinion of the students and determined that half knew of this correlation but that it didn't affect their grades.

In future studies it could be important to determine how much the assistance (attendance) policies affect the correlation between grades and absences. To accomplish this, the research could be done in other colleges and universities with different policies. Maybe it would be possible to find, if there was no assistance required, how that would affect the relationship between grades and absences.

(1,656 words)

WORKS CITED

Levine, Judith R. "The Effect of Different Attendance Policies on Students' Attendance and Achievement." National Meeting of the American Psychological Association. Boston, April 3-5.