Background research information:
Do athletes at North
Olmsted High School have a higher average GPA than non-athletes?
This study will compare the GPA of athletes at North Olmsted
High School to that of non-athletes. The background research
consists of previous studies that use this topic in other areas. The
first study, “The Effect of Athletic Involvement on GPA: The Benefit
of Playing a Sport,” compared the GPA of athletes and non-athletes
at California Community Colleges, GSW, The University of North
Dakota, and San Joaquin Delta College. A second study, “Counter
Point: Beefed-up GPA of High School Athletics Forget Social Values
Gained,” compares the GPA of High School athletes and non-athletes
in Canada, New Mexico, Texas, and North Carolina involving 325,000
students. The third study, “A High School Athlete's GPA Vs. Average
High School Student's GPA,” compares the GPA of High School Athletes
and non-athletes and also includes a study at Michigan State
University. These studies were similar to our study we are expecting
similar results: The GPA will be higher for athletes than for
non-athletes.
In the first article, “The Effect of Athletic involvement on
GPA: The Benefits of Playing a Sport,” a study at California
community colleges was conducted in 1991. Basketball players were
found to have a lower average GPA than non-athletes, 1.98 compared
to 2.29. In this study, the basketball players took on more credit
hours but had a lower average GPA. A second study was performed at
GSW involving 100 students. It found no significant relationship
between athletic involvement and GPA but it found
that athletes were more likely to be male, young, single, part time
workers or not working, and took more credit hours per semester. The
results may have been affected by a small sample size and it is
possible that the GPA may be different for athletes of different
sports. A study at the University of North Dakota found that
athletes who played in revenue sports had a lower average GPA than
athletes that participated in non-revenue sports. It is also
possible that the position an athlete plays is related to their GPA.
For example, an athlete that plays a position requiring more
strategy and intellect may have a higher GPA. A study at San Joaquin
Delta College found college athletes average GPA to be between 2.54
and 2.61 but without P.E. and athletic grades, which accounted for
between 16 and 23 percent of an athletes credit hours received, the
average GPA was between 2.08 and 2.21. Extraneous factors in this
study include sex, age, relationship status, employment status,
number of credit hours, and type of sport an athlete participates
in. Overall, this article has not found conclusive evidence that can
show a definite relationship between College involvement in
athletics and GPA but has determined many extraneous factors that
may affect the results of the study. One major extraneous factor
mentioned previously in this article is that a minimum GPA
requirement is often set which will put low GPA athletes into the
non-athlete section meaning no athlete will have a GPA below the
minimum requirement while non-athletes may have a GPA much below
this level. Although this study deals with colleges, we feel that
the results should be similar when applied to North Olmsted High
School.
The second article, “Counter Point: Beefed-up GPA of High
School Athletics Forget Social Values gained,” studies 325,000 high
school students from Canada, New Mexico, Texas, and N.C. High School
association and found that high school athletes had a 2.8 average
GPA while non-athletes had a 1.95 average GPA. It also found that
athletes had an average of 6.25 days absent per year and 30.15
percent of athletes had a discipline referral while non-athletes had
an average of 12.57 days absent per year and 40.04 percent received
discipline referrals. The article also reports that High School
Athletes also had greater discipline, higher church attendance,
higher graduation rates, stronger family relationships, are more
involved in high school, are college bound more often, and have a
higher graduation rate. This article fails to mention extraneous
factors that may affect the study although the qualities mentioned
are examples of extraneous factors. They could be related to a
higher GPA rather than involvement in athletics. The third article,
“A High School Athlete's GPA Vs. Average High School Student's GPA,”
shows a study done by Michigan State University where researchers
concluded that students who played rigorous sports performed an
average of 10 percent better in Math, Science, English, and Social
Studies. Female athletes had a much higher GPA than female
non-athletes while the difference between male athletes and
non-athletes was not as large, although male athletes still had
a higher average GPA than male non-athletes. Female athletes
had the highest average GPA among all students. Hispanic and Black
athletes also showed a higher average GPA than Hispanic and Black
non-athletes. This study shows that gender can play a major role in
High School athletes GPA and is an extraneous factor.
Overall, the studies we have viewed show that without
directly removing the extraneous factor minimum GPA requirement,
High School athletes should have a higher average GPA than
non-athletes. During studies in the first
article, average GPA was similar for college athletes and
non-athletes before a minimum GPA was set. Since North Olmsted High
School has a minimum GPA requirement for athletes, the athlete GPA
may be larger than normal but this is part of being an athlete and
will therefore not be removed. We believe that most extraneous
factors will not affect our results significantly since the students
surveyed will be chosen at random and the sample size will be large,
filtering out most extraneous factors. The articles used were found
using the Google search engine and the topic is a well researched
area. Most studies found that high school athletes had a higher
average GPA than non-athletes but made note of the minimum GPA
requirement. We believe that North Olmsted High School athletes will
have a higher average GPA than non-athletes and we will have similar
results to the majority of other studies.