The Empirical Economics Letters, 6(5): (September 2007) ISSN 1681 8997

Factors Affecting Grade Point Average of University Students*

Cumhur Erdem** 1, smail entrk2 and Cem Kaan Arslan3
Department of Economics, Gaziosmanapaa University Taliftlik Kamps, Tokat
Abstract: The objective of this study is to determine which socio-economic and demographic factors have impact on students cumulative grade point average. To meet this objective, a survey was carried out at Gaziosmanpaa University with fourth grade students. The data were analyzed by using ordered probit model. According to the results, factors such as the type of high school graduates, gender, the number of sisters/brothers in school, education level of parents, expression of family expectations about the school and study time have impact on the grade point average. Keywords: Ordered Probit, Grade Point Average, University JEL Classification Number: A22, I21

1. Introduction Since the number of people who graduated from a university has increased in Turkey, there is a high competition among the graduates in white collar job market. One of the indicators that highlight the university students qualification is the academic performance mostly measured with the cumulative grade point average (CGPA). Many employers use the CGPA to screen out the job candidates and they mostly prefer a candidate with a higher CGPA. Many factors are considered as determiners of the students CGPA such as gender, previous academic performance, living place and income level of family, social environment, the type and quality of the high school graduated, the high school grade point
*

** 1

This research was supported by Scientific Research Projects Commission of Gaziosmanpaa University. The paper was presented at the 3. International Conference on Business, Management and Economics in eme, zmir.

Corresponding author. Assistant Professor. Email: Cumhur_erdem@yahoo.com 2 Research assistant. Email: smailsenturk@gop.edu.tr 3 Research assistant. Email: Kaantin@hotmail.com

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average, the score obtained from nationwide university entrance exam (OSS), time spend for studying, learning ability and living place during the university life. Since there is a lack of studies about determinants of the university students CGPA in Turkey, this study is expected to fill the gap in the literature for this research area. The objective of this study is to determine which factors have impact on the probability of getting a higher CGPA for undergraduate students. The method employed to examine the relationship between socio-economic variables and the CGPA is different from that of previous studies in which student performance was treated as a five categorical likert scale that consists of five different percentiles. According to their CGPAs, we view the student as placing at the top 20 percentile, second 20 percentile, third, forth and finally fifth 20 percentile. This permits us to use an Ordered Probit model to identify which factors have impact on the students CGPA. The following sections of this paper involve literature review, data and method where the data and model were defined, empirical findings and finally summary and conclusions. 2. Literature Review There have been studies in the literature to identify which factors have impact on the students success in higher education. In a study, Dayolu and Trt-Ak (2007) attempted to determine whether there are significant gender differences in academic performance among undergraduate students at Middle East Technical University. They reported that even though a smaller number of female students managed to enter the university, they outperformed their male counterparts. Young and Fisler (2000) found out that in SAT-M exam, male students get higher scores than females because of the different socio-economic background of students such as males come from families with a high income and educational attainment and take more and higher level mathematics courses Stricker and Rock (1995) examined the effect of personal and school characteristics on Graduate Record Examinations (GRE). According to the findings, the personal characteristics have a weak effect on scores and the education level of parents is the most effective variable. They also found that school related characteristics such as institutional quality have also impact on the exam scores. Urien (2003) found that personal characteristics, family background and study discipline have impact on the academic performance of students. Fertig and Schmidt (2002) reported that there is a positive relationship between students verbal performances and having a working mother and father who have high education level and unbroken family structure.

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In a study, Betts and Morell (1998) reported that; the factors such as sex, ethnic origin, family income and social economic environment are the sources of the differences in the graduate point average. Smith and Naylor (2004) examined the effect of the students school characteristics on the university performance and found out that the probability of the graduating from the university with a higher CGPA for a student who completes his high school in private school is, on the average, 5.9 percent higher than a student who graduates from a public school. Horowitz and Spector (2004) reported that the students who graduate from religious high school show higher performance than the students who graduate from private and public high schools. Cohn et al. (2004) examined the effect of socio-economic and demographic factors on student performance in South Carolina University and found out that white students gets higher scores than non-white students. They also found that males are less likely than females to achieve the 3.0 CGPA. Durden (1981) and Romer (1993) reported that absenteeism reduces the CGPA. In a study, Wolaver (2002) focused on students alcohol consumption as a determinant of the graduation average and found out that increase on alcohol consumption reduces the student academic success. Clifton et al. (2004) stated that the pedagogical environment and the psychosocial dispositions affect the students academic success. 3. Data and Methodology 3.1. Data The data for this study were collected by surveying 308 fourth grade students at Gaziosmanpaa University on April of 2006. The grade point averages of students were obtained from the university student office. The definition of the variables used in the estimation and their descriptive statistics are presented in Appendix. 3.2. Methodology An Ordered Probit model was used to meet the objective. The model is shown as follows:
' y* i = xi + i ,

i ~ N[0,1],

(1)

yi = 0

if y* i 0

y i = 1 if y * i 1 yi = 2 if y * i 2 . y i = J if y * i J 1

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where y i is the observed counterpart of y* i , is the vector of coefficients to be estimated,

xi is the matrix of independent variables, j is the distance variable and i is the error
term. The variance of error term is assumed to be 1.00 (Greene, 2000). The ordinal variable y i is defined to take a value of j if y * i falls in the j th category:
y = j if j 1 < y * < j

j =1,, J

where

's

are unknown threshold parameters

that must be estimated along with probability of

assuming 1 = , 0 = 0 and j = . The

obtaining an observation with y= j is equal to Pr ob( y = j ) = F ( j x ) F ( j 1 x ) where F is the cumulative standard normal

distribution function. The effect of the independent variable on the probability of the j th level is given by Pr ob( y = j ) / x = f ( j 1 x ) f ( j x ) where f is the

standard normal density function (Tansel, 2002). The following model was estimated by using maximum likelihood method to have consistent and efficient parameter estimates.
PGPAi = 0 + 1 Finevoci + 2 Ana sup i + 3 Studhousei + 4 Pr ivedormi + 5 Livefamily i + 6 Interest i + 7 Genderi + 8 Ln Incomei + 9 Fameresd i + 10 Numbrosist i + 11 Fatedu i + 12 Motedu i + 13 Bookread i + 14 Compowni + 15 Family expi + 16 Socialact i + 17 Weekstudyi + i

(2) To obtain the dependent variable PGPA, first, for every department, students were ranked in a descending order according to their CGPAs, second, again for every department, they were separated into five percentile categories from the top 20 percentile to the bottom 20 percentile, Third, these percentiles were numbered with 5 likert scale from 1 (bottom 20 percentile) to five (top 20 percentile). Finally, same percentile of every department was matched with each other and numbered consecutively. The socio-economic and demographic determiners of the undergraduate CGPA were used as independent variables in equation (2). The variable Interest was added to the model to see whether getting an education from a major closely related to students fields of interests has impact on having a higher CGPA or not. A positive correlation between the percentile of CGPA and this variable is expected. The variable of Bookread was added to the model to examine the impact of reading habits of students on their CGPA. It is expected that the more book reading habit a student has, the higher CGPA he or she gets. The Gender variable was added to the model to see

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whether females do better in grades than males do. By taking Dayolu and Trt-Ak (2007) study into account, it is expected that females get higher CGPA than males. Average family income is considered to be one of the most important familial factors that have impact on a students CGPA since a high income level of family brings out more possibilities in social and educational life. The Income variable is expected to be positively related to the CGPA. Since a students mother, father and brother/sister are role models for her/him, having a large number of brothers / sisters may positively affect the persons study habit. On the other hand, if a student has a large number of brothers / sisters, the familys financial resources are divided into many parts and this situation may negatively affect the student standing in the school. The educational level of students parents is expected to be positively related to the CGPA since a highly educated father and mother are expected to be a good role model and be more supportive of their children in many ways. It is expected that a student whose family resides in the city is more likely to have a higher CGPA than counterparts because there is a probability that students who come from towns or villages may have difficulty to adopt to the city life and this may affect their university life negatively. It may be also possible that urban families are more conscious and sensitive about their childrens education. It is also expected that expression of family expectations about completing the school in time and getting a higher CGPA positively affect the students CGPA since by feeling under the family pressure may encourage students to study more for their courses. Finevoc and Anasup are dummy variables used to indicate the type of high school a student attended. The dummy variable for standard high school wasnt included to the model to escape dummy variable trap. Since Anatolian and science high schools accept students with a nationwide examination, students graduated from these high schools are expected to have higher grades from their courses than others. Dummy variables Livefamily, Privadorm and Studhouse are used to examine the effect of students accommodation place on the CGPA. Since living in on-campus dormitory (residence halls) has been shown to affect students' academic achievement positively (Edwards and McKelfresh, 2002) and on-campus dormitories provide more opportunities to students according to their needs and interests, it is expected that students who stay oncampus dormitories get higher CGPAs than others. It is also expected that the variables Socialact, Compown and Weekstudy positively affect the student CGPA.

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4. Empirical Results Table 1 reports the findings of the ordered probit model. According to the results, the Finevoc, Anasup, Livefamily, Interest, Numbrsist and Weekstudy variables are statistically significant at one, five and ten percent significance levels and positively related to the dependent variable. The variables Gender, Fathedu, Mothedu and Familyexp are statistically significant at one, five and ten percent significance levels and negatively related to the dependent variable. As shown in Table 2, the largest impact on probability of getting a higher CGPA comes from the variable of Finevoc, and a marginal increase in this variable increases the probability of getting a higher CGPA by 27.89 percent. A marginal increase on Anasup variable increases the probability of being in the top 20 percentile by 11.15 percent. A marginal increase on Livefamily variable increases the probability of being in the top 20 percentile by 12.32 percent. A marginal increase on Interest variable increases the probability of being in the top 20 percentile by 6.39 percent. A marginal increase on Numbrsist and Weekstudy variables increases the probability of being in the top 20 percentile by 3.19 and 4.60 percent, respectively. Table 1: Ordered Probit Model Results Independent variables Constant Finevoc Anasup Studhouse Privedorm Livefamily Interest Gender Income Note: *, ** and percent levels.
***

Coefficients 1.643*** 0.861* 0.393** -0.083 0.102 0.421*** 0.244* -0.563* -0.156

Independent variables Fameresd Numborsist Fathedu Mothedu Bookread Compown Familyexp Socialact Weekstudy

Coefficients 0.053 0.126** -0.124*** -0.155** -0.028 0.091 -0.084*** -0.020 0.182*

show that the coefficients are statistically significant at 1, 5 and 10

On the other hand, a marginal increase on Gender variable reduces the probability of being in the top 20 percentile by 15.22 percent. A marginal increase on Fathedu, Mothedu, Familyexp variables reduces the probability of being in the top 20 percentile by 3.14, 3.92 and 2.14 percent, respectively.

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Table 2: Marginal Effects for Ordered Probit Model Deikenler Finevoc Anasup Livefamily Interest Gender Numborsist Fathedu Mothedu Familyexp Weekstudy Prob(Y=00) -0.175 -0.099 -0.102 -0.069 0.148 -0.035 0.035 0.043 0.023 -0.051 Prob(Y=01) -0.110 -0.047 -0.052 -0.026 0.063 -0.013 0.013 0.016 0.009 -0.019 Prob(Y=02) -0.048 -0.008 -0.012 0.002 0.005 0.001 -0.001 -0.001 -0.001 0.001
**

Prob(Y=03) 0.054 0.042 0.042 0.031 -0.064 0.016 -0.016 -0.020 -0.011 0.023
and
***

Prob(Y=04) 0.279 0.112 0.123 0.062 -0.152 0.032 -0.031 -0.039 -0.021 0.046

Note: Values inside the parentheses stand for z values, and *, statistically significant at 1, 5 and 10 percent levels.

show that coefficients are

5. Summary and Conclusion The objective of this study is to identify the socio-economic and demographic factors that affect the probability of getting higher grade point average for a university student. In order to meet this aim, a survey was carried out for the 4th grade students at Gaziosmanpaa University. According to the findings, the probability of getting a higher CGPA for students who graduate from science and anatolian high schools is higher than the students who graduate from the standard high schools. The parallelism of the field of the study and students interest increase the probability of getting a higher CGPA. One of the interesting findings of the study is that an increase on the educational level of mother and father reduces the probability of getting a higher CGPA which contradicts the study of Stricker and Rock (1995). Similar to the finding of Dayolu and Trt-Ak (2007) and Cohn (2004), it was found that female students get higher CGPA than male students. There is a positive relationship between the number of brothers and sisters in school and the students CGPA. It can be concluded that having a brother/sister in school may motivate the student positively. Another interesting finding is that the families who express their expectations from their children about completion of the school in time decrease the probability of getting a higher

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CGPA. It was found that an increase on the time spent for studying for the courses increases the probability of getting a higher CGPA which is similar to the findings of previous studies. Findings of this study may have important contribution to the university administrations, policy makers, students and students families in terms of providing them which factors have impact on student success. Reference Betts, J. R. and D. Morell, 1998, The Determinants of Undergraduate Grade Point Average: The Relative Importance of Family Background, High School Resources, and Peer Group Effects, The Journal of Human Resources, 34, 268293. Bhagat, R. S., 1981, Determinants of Performance in an Innovative Organizational Setting: A Longitudinal Analysis, Journal of Occupational Behavior, 4, 125138. Clifton R. A., R. P. Perry, C. A. Stubbs and L. W. Roberts, 2004, Faculty Environments, Psychosocial Dispositions, and the Academic Achievement of College Students, Research in Higher Education, 45, 801828. Cohn, E., S. Cohn, D. C. Balch and J. Bradley, 2004, Determinants of Undergraduate GPAs: SAT Scores, High-School GPA and High-School Rank, Economics of Education Review, 23, 577-586. Dayolu, M. and S. Trt-Ak, 2007, Gender Differences in Academic Performance in a Large Public University in Turkey, Higher Education, 53, 255277. Durden, G. C. and L. V. Ellis, 1995, The Effects of Attendance on Student Learning in Principles of Economics, The American Economic Review, 5, 343346. Edwards, K.E, D.A. McKelfresh, 2002, The Impact of a Living Learning Center on Students' Academic Success and Persistence, Journal of College Student Development, 43, 395-402. Fertig, M. and C. M. Schmidt, 2002, The Role of Background Factors for Reading Literacy: Straight National Scores in the PISA 2000 Study, IZA Discussion Paper No. 545. Horowitz, J. B. and L. Spector, 2005, Is There a Difference Between Private and Public Education on College Performance?, Economics of Education Review, 24, 189195.

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Kingdon G.G. and F. Teal, Does Performance Related Pay for Teachers Improve Student Performance? Some Evidence from India, (http://129.3.20.41/eps/dev/papers/0409/0409009.pdf). (accessed 22.03.2006). Maddala, G.S., 2001, Introduction to Econometrics. Third Edition, John Wiley and Sons, England. Romer, D. 1993, Do Students Go to Class? Should They?, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, (Summer), pp.167174. Smith, J. and R. Naylor, 2005, Schooling Effects on Subsequent University Performance: Evidence for the UK University Population, Economics of Education Review, 24, 549 562. Stricker, L. J. and D. A. Rock, 1995, Examinee Background Characteristics and GRE General Test Performance, Intelligence, 21, 4979. Tansel, A., 2002, Determinants of school attainment of boys and girls in Turkey: individual, household and community factors, Economics of Education Review, 21, 455470 Urien S. A., Determinants of Academic Performance of Hec-Lausanne Graduates, (http://www.hec.unil.ch/modmacro/recueil/Sakho.pdf). (01.02.2005). Young, JW. and JL. Fisler, 2000, Sex Differences on The SAT: An Analysis of Demographic and Educational Variables, Research in Higher Education, 41(3), 401-416. Wolaver, A. M., 2002, Effects of Heavy Drinking in College on Study Effort, Grade Point Average, and Major Choice, Contemporary Economic Policy, (October), 415428.

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Appendix: Descriptive Statistics of the Variables used in the Analysis Variables PGPA Standhigh Finevoc Anasup Dormitory Studhouse Privadorm Livefamily Interest Gender Income Fameresd Numbrsist Fathedu Mothedu Bookread Compown Familyexp Socialact Weekstudy Definition The percentile of grade point average (1=last 20 percent, 2=fourth 20 percent, 3=third 20 percent, 4=second 20 percent, 5= top 20 percent) Type of high school graduated (Dummy variable) (1=Standard high school, 0=otherwise) Type of high school graduated (Dummy variable) (1=Fine arts and vocational, 0=otherwise) Type of high school graduated (Dummy variable) (1=Anatolian or super, 0=otherwise) Living place at university (Dummy) (1=on campus dormitory, 0=otherwise) Living place at university (Dummy) (1=student house, 0=otherwise) Living place at university (Dummy variable) (1=private dormitory, 0=otherwise) Living place (Dummy variable) (1=living together with family, 0=otherwise) How much are you considering that you have been getting education closely related to your interest (1=lesser, 2=less, 3=moderate, 4=more, 5=much more) Dummy variable (1=male, 0=female) Average family income (in logarithm) Place of family residence (1=village, 2=town, 3=city center) The number of brothers and sisters in school Educational level of father (1=illiterate, 2=elementary school, 3=secondary school, 4=high school, 5=university and above) Educational level of mother (1=illiterate, 2=elementary school, 3=secondary school, 4=high school, 5=university and above) How do you scale your bookreading habit (1=none, 2=little, 3=moderate, 4=more) Own a computer (Dummy variable) (1=yes, 0=no) How frequently your family express their expectations about completion of school in time and getting high CGPA (1=rarely, 2=sometimes, 3=moderate, 4=most of the time, 5=always) How much are you considering that you are participating in social activities in school (1=lesser, 2=less, 3=moderate, 4=more, 5=much more) On average, how many hours do you study for your courses in a week (1=1-5 hours, 2=6-10, 3=11-15, 4=16-20, 5=21-25, 6=26+) Mean 1.925 0.724 0.107 0.169 0.208 0.617 0.078 0.097 3.208 0.633 6.766 2.490 1.795 3.110 2.250 2.893 0.412 3.357 2.714 2.308 St. dev 1.489 0.413 0.310 0.375 0.354 0.487 0.268 0.297 1.102 0.483 0.531 0.710 1.119 1.167 0.978 0.773 0.493 1.366 1.054 1.391