COMPARISON OF GRADE POINT AVERAGE OF HONOR SENIOR STUDENTS AND COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS SENIOR STUDENTS AT A FLORIDA UNIVERSITY

Authors

Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow

First Advisor

Dr. Dianne Bryant, Ph. D

Date of this Version

Summer 2003

Document Type

Article

Citation

Kejawa, Iwasan D (2003) "Comparison of Grade Point Average of Honnor College Students and Senior Liberal Arts Student at Florida University." Nova Southeastern University, Florida

Abstract

Attrition rates in theHonor College program division of Florida Atlantic University have risen in recent years. It has been determined that even though a higher high school grade point average is required for admission into the honor program of the university, many applicants to the program were under-prepared to asumme the workload demanded of the students by the Honor College. The requirements for admission into the honor program of the Florida Atlantic University is an overall high school grade point average of 3.5 and a score of 1000 points on the SAT examination while the requirement into the College of liberal Arts program of the university is an overall high school grade point average of 2.5 and a score of 900 point on the SAT examination. The problem was that it was unknown whether there is a difference

between the grade point average of the seniors at the Honor College and the grade point average of the seniors at the liberal Arts college.

The purpose of this practicum was to determine if there was a significant difference between the cumulative grade point average of the seniorFAUHonorCollegestudents and seniorFAUliberal ArtsCollegestudents. The research question was: “Is there a significant difference in the grade point average of FAU seniorHonorCollegestudents and FAU senior Liberal Arts College students?”

An ex post facto research design was used to conduct the study. Data were collected from the FAU college Registrar’s office via the student Information Services (SIS) database on January 2003. The sample consisted of 50 subjects each from the respective colleges. A parametric test of independent mean, the t-test, was used to determine if there was a significant difference between the GPAs of seniorHonorCollege students and GPAs of senior Liberal Arts college students.

Comparison of the two-sample means produced a calculated t value of .99. The critical t value was 2.0 with p = 0.92. Based on the results of the statistical testing, the null hypothesis which assumed no difference between the mean was accepted at the 0.05 level of significance. The alternative hypothesis which assumed a difference at the 0.05 significance was rejected.

Several conclusions were drawn the study. There was strong positive relationship between the mean cumulative grade point average of the FAU Honor college senior students and cumulative grade point average of Liberal Arts College senior students. The result did not support the use of higher admission criteria of students into theHonorCollegeprogram.

As a result of this investigation, it is recommended that the admission criteria of the Honor College should be lower or made the same as that of the Liberal Arts College. The results showed that even though students have higher high school GPA does not necessary mean that such students will continue to maintain higher education standard at the senior level of their college careers. In addition, monitoring of such student’s success at the Honor College should be conducted through the sophomore years and again at the senior year or the conclusion of the program of study.