Does studying improve your ACT SCORE?

             There were a few weaknesses in my study. Response bias could have affected the results because people might have lied on the survey if they were ashamed of the real score they earned on the ACT or of how little time they studied. Also most people don’t know the exact amount of time they spent studying so what they answered was only an estimate. Nonresponse bias greatly affected my survey. My original sample size was fifty, but it was lowered to twenty because I only got twenty surveys returned. There could be a confounding factor within the group that caused only certain people to answer and return the surveys. Additionally, I was forced to sample all juniors and seniors because I couldn’t get a list of just people who took the ACT since it was confidential. Therefore, many of the surveys returned were unusable because they hadn’t taken the ACT at all. There might be sophomores and even freshmen at NOHS that already took the ACT, but they were excluded from my study because I couldn’t get the proper list. Another confounding variable in my study was that I realized as I was looking up class periods to send the surveys that many students from my sample participated in Polaris and PSEOP classes. Students involved in these courses may have specific studying habits or receive higher scores or lower scores than the average student.

          My population was all students at NOHS who have taken the ACT. I would not be comfortable extrapolating my results to any other population. My sample size was much too small to show any clear results. Also, there could be a special characteristic that students at NOHS have because of their geographic location that causes their test scores to be lower or higher. The teachers here could be putting special emphasis on studying or test preparation causing our scores to be higher and our study time to be higher than other schools in the United States or even around this area.

          I would suggest that this study be repeated using a larger sample size. Also the original sample should be taken from a larger population than just North Olmsted High School. A sample from all high schools in Ohio or all high schools in the US would provide much more accurate and significant results.