North Olmsted High School was sampled to find out.
I started my research by
searching “study to see if high school students have a higher gpa.”
The results that showed were mainly about student’s average GPAs, but
after looking through the results, I found a study titled “GPA of
Athletes vs. Non‐Athletes”, by Ryan Stegall. The study was done in
2012 and submitted to The Educational Leadership Faculty, Northwest
Missouri State University, Department of Educational Leadership, and
the College of Education and Human Services. The study sampled from
the 2012 graduating class, one-third of which participated in a sport.
They found that student athletes had a higher GPA, averaging 3.25.
Meanwhile the non-athletes students averaged a GPA of 3.01. The
researchers concluded that athletes are pushed to do well on and off
the field by the school system. Sports have taught the students
responsibility, respect, and time management. By the school setting
minimums, the athletes have been pushed to at least perform the
minimum GPA required.
Next I searched “do student
athletes have a higher gpa”, and found a study by Kara Fleming titled
“Athlete vs Non-Athlete GPA’s”, submitted to the same sources as
Stegall’s, but was done in 2015, using data from the 2014 fall school
year. 393 students were involved in the study, and Fleming found that
student athletes had an average gpa of 3.28 whereas non-athletes
averaged a gpa of 2.98. This study included
ethnicity, attendance, and lunch status to help analyze if the
students who participated in athletics had a higher GPA than the
students who did not. Fleming does address the factors such as
athletes leaving class for travel time, free time spent on field, and
not taking time to catch up on missed work into account for student
athletes. Fleming also concluded that student athletes were advancing
because if the school’s strict conditions on minimum class
requirements in order to participate in sports.
Finally, I went to the NCAA
website to find requirements for college athletes to compare to high
school requirements, because high school requirements will vary by
state. College students are required to take 16 courses, earn at least
a 2.3 GPA, and earn a combined SAT or ACT score matching your core
course GPA. These minimum requirements are much higher than high
school, but it gave me a good idea as to what the minimums can look
like for a larger group than the one my study will include. In
conclusion, this study has been conducted before and data has been
found, so I will be able to compare my results to the other studies
I have found to help create my conclusion.[1]
“GPA of Athletes vs.
Non‐Athletes”
https://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ResearchPapers/2012/Stegall,%20Ryan.pdf
“Athlete vs Non-Athlete GPA’s”
https://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/researchpapers/2015/Fleming,%20Kara.pdf
“Play division I sports”