In the paper "Course scheduling and academic performance", Angela K. Dills and Ray Hernandez-Julian examine the relationship between course scheduling and student achievement, controlling for student and course characteristics. The introduction begins by explaining how higher education courses are generally scheduled and introduces a dataset consisting of student and administrative data from Clemson University. With the use of student grades as a measure of performance, the paper argues that there is a small, positive time of day effect driven by student selection into preferred course times. Additionally, students earn higher grades in classes that meet more frequently throughout the week .
A student 's grade depends on many variables: …show more content…
Student grades are recorded without pluses or minuses as A,B,C,D, or F, which can then be converted to a standard 4 point scale. The student grades from these administrative records are then combined with meeting time information from the schedule of classes, with the meeting time being the average of the start and end times in which a class meets most often. Overall, 12,887 students are observed in the study and possess fairly similar academic credentials to the average college student in the United States, so the findings of the study should be applicable outside of Clemson …show more content…
With regard to academic achievement, these findings suggest all courses should take place in the afternoon, and meet three or more times per week. The implications of these findings to policy recommendations, however, is currently unclear. The estimated effect of class time on student grades is statistically significant but small, and moving classes to later times could have high costs due to limited classroom space, and potential strain on other university resources. Additionally, if all students were to take classes at a later time, it is doubtful that everyone 's grade would increase by the estimated amounts due to variation in students ' abilities. Finally, Dills and Julian acknowledge that additional research, including controlled experiments, would provide necessary evidence to further strengthen their
A student 's grade depends on many variables: …show more content…
Student grades are recorded without pluses or minuses as A,B,C,D, or F, which can then be converted to a standard 4 point scale. The student grades from these administrative records are then combined with meeting time information from the schedule of classes, with the meeting time being the average of the start and end times in which a class meets most often. Overall, 12,887 students are observed in the study and possess fairly similar academic credentials to the average college student in the United States, so the findings of the study should be applicable outside of Clemson …show more content…
With regard to academic achievement, these findings suggest all courses should take place in the afternoon, and meet three or more times per week. The implications of these findings to policy recommendations, however, is currently unclear. The estimated effect of class time on student grades is statistically significant but small, and moving classes to later times could have high costs due to limited classroom space, and potential strain on other university resources. Additionally, if all students were to take classes at a later time, it is doubtful that everyone 's grade would increase by the estimated amounts due to variation in students ' abilities. Finally, Dills and Julian acknowledge that additional research, including controlled experiments, would provide necessary evidence to further strengthen their