Introduction to Econometrics

BS2220 Dr. Kai Sun

Report
Analysis of the impact of academic and non-

academic activities on first year students performance

Candidate Number: 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance

2011

Contents:

1.

Introduction: 1.1. Research Question and Importance of the Study 1.2. Existing Studies 1.3. Report Structure

2. Conceptual Framework: 2.1. Theories 2.2. Literature review 2.3. Relationship prediction 3. Data and Methodology: 3.1. Source and Explanation of Data 3.2. Data Analysis 3.3. Correlations 3.4. Regression Model 3.5. Estimation Strategy 4. Econometrics Results: 4.1. Estimated Coefficients 4.2. Goodness of Fit and Diagnostic Tests 5. Conclusion: 5.1. Implications 5.2. Suggestions 6. References
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BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance

2011

Introduction

Research Question and Importance of the Study The main aim of this study is to examine and analyze the main factors that reflect on first year students academic performance. The UK is renowned for its excellent higher education and attracts thousands of new students each year. Many of them originate from different cultures and backgrounds and are used to lead different lifestyles. This may include after-school engagements with academic and nonacademic clubs and societies, part-time employment and socializing with friends. The core purpose of this study is to investigate how many this differences in students lifestyle and background influence on their academic performance. It is also crucial to identify which determinants are statistically significant and have negative or positive impact on students performance, so that both students and the University can put their efforts on them to increase students efficiency and overall performance. In order to achieve the goal of our study we have gathered data from a survey, conducted online by hundred and seventy students doing the BS2220 course at Aston University, comprising of seventy-nine questions in four areas. For this research I have primarily focused on three main categories as I consider them most highly correlated with the academic performance of first year students: (i) Studying and proximity to the universitys educational facilities (ii) Time spent on leisure activities and part time jobs; (iii) Using the universitys educational facilities. Existing Studies This topic is not new and prior studies have been conducted to identify the variables related to academic success of students in a variety of countries. With the increasing diversity of students attending university, there is a growing interest in the factors predicting academic performance. In a study conducted in Australian university, McKenzie & Schweitzer (2001) identified previous academic performance as the most significant predictor of academic performance. Other predictors of university grades, found by the study, were integration into university, self efficacy and employment responsibility. In other more recent research Lebcir, Wells and Bond (2008) suggest that the factors: level of details given in lectures, speed of lectures, academic internet sources, English Language Skills, group or individual assessment, the qualitative/quantitative content of assessment are important drivers of the academic performance of international students. Report Structure The first section of this analytical paper introduces a conceptual framework and literature review of previous research in the area and finishes with a prediction for the outcomes of the examined question. The second section presents the means of data BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics
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Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance

2011

gathering and its explanation followed by presentation of the research methodology. The Econometrics results section provides evaluation of the performance of the regression model and examines it for violations. At the end a conclusion summarises the main findings and gives suggestions for better future performance, based on these findings.

Conceptual Framework
Theories In order to identify the relationship between students lifestyle and their academic performance it is necessary first to give definition to the concept of academic performance. Academic performance can be defined as the general level of grades a student acquires in exams and course-works throughout the academic year. Researchers have explored the study environment as a potential factor of academic performance outcome (Dorman, Fraser & McRobbie, 1997). It is also essential to understand the concept of lifestyle. According to Michman, Mazze, and Greco (2003) lifestyle emerges from various social influences, as well as an individuals personal value system and personality. Students spend their time influenced by their activities, interest and options available. After we defined these variables we can identify the key relationships between different student lifestyles and academic results. Literature review Throughout years a large amount of researches have been carried out in various universities worldwide in an attempt to most accurately identify the variables, determining students performance. Attendance in lectures and tutorials is considered to be essential variable in determining students academic results. This was proven in a research carried out by Walbeek, C. (2004) that students, attending all lectures and tutorials, are expected to achieve 7.3 percent more than their colleagues, who have not attended any lectures. Other supporting evidence is the study of E. Burd & B. Hodgson (2004) which identifies a strong correlation between lecture attendance and academic performance. I am also interested in the relationship between the usage of University facilities and services and academic results. In particular I am interested in the usage of mathematics tutorials, as Aston University provides valuable mathematics support, through its Learning Development Center, for students who are not very good with numbers and aims to improve their understanding and knowledge of the subject thus increase their academic performance. Studies among academics, including Mark Fenster (1998) and others have shown that there is a positive correlation between the amount of mathematics taken and exam result. Another component of students lifestyle is the time they spend watching television. Chernin & Limburger (2005) have found in their research a negative relationship between the amount of television watched and academic

BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance

2011

performance. Additionally, part-time work is also a segment of students lifestyle, especially for the students, who cover their living expenses on their own, without any financial support from their parents. The Cire Rochford, Michael Connolly & Jonathan Drennan (2009) research, conducted on students doing nursery, support the theory, that part-time employment has a negative correlation with academic overall result. Relationship Prediction Based on previous studies, the findings listed above and my personal preferences I will choose six variables to find out what determines academic performance based on our sample. In this paper I will study the relationship between academic performance and dwelling location, mathematics tutorials and study skills workshops taken, time spent watching TV, part-time employment during university and alcohol consumption. I predict that students, who live on campus, have higher attendance of study skills workshops and mathematics tutorials, spend less hours watching TV and doing parttime work and consume smaller units of alcohol are tend to have higher grades. In my research paper I am going to test these assumptions using correlations, regression analysis and other statistical methods.

The Data and Methodology

Source and Explanation of Data In order to complete this investigation, a survey has been conducted on hundred and seventy students from Aston University, Birmingham, taking the BS2220 module Introduction to Econometrics taught by Dr. Kai Sun. The questions in the survey were divided into four main groups; students personal information, lifestyle, family background and academic related information. The cross-sectional data collected from thirty eight questions in the survey represents students from diverse ethnicity and cultural backgrounds, which is something normal for Aston University and all other UK universities as whole. The sample size examined seems to be relatively small comparing to the scale of Aston University but I presume that the quality of the students in it is relatively high, as the Econometrics module is considered to be one of the most complicated and demanding modules throughout the Business School. A lot of the variables in this dataset are highly correlated with students academic performance, for example, proximity of accommodation to university, prior academic achievements, after school engagements, such as part-time jobs, clubs, societies and sport activities, number of lectures and tutorials missed, time spend studying and revising prior and during exam period and time spend on leisure activities, such as TV watch, Facebook socializing and alcohol consumption. For the matter of my investigation I will analyse a set of six variables, which I think have a high impact on students performance and cover all aspects listed above.

BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance Data Analysis

2011

The outcomes of some questions in the survey conducted were initially described with characters in the dataset, or non-numeric values, but they have been converted into numeric functions. For example, using the destring and encode commands in STATA we can create dummy variables, which convert the character variables into numeric functions, so that all answers yes become 1 and no become 0. The data coding was completed in advance and the data was ready to be analysed. The summary of the dependant variable and some of the independent variables conducted in STATA showed the following results:

Variable Description First Year Average Score Uni Entry Score Lecture Hours Missed Use of Study Skills Workshop Prior Exam Period Library Study Exam Period Library Study Living on Campus Part of Non-Academic Society Part-Time Job Money Spent on Phone Alcohol consumption Facebook Usage Hours Watching TV

Observations 79 79 79 79 79 79 79 79 79 79 79 79 79

Mean 64.71139 81.60253 16.08861 .2025316 18.26582 20.18987 .2151899 .7341772 9.563291 25.15823 5.93038 6.772152 5.898734

Standard Deviation 12.60914 29.1013 24.62862 .4044543 39.88178 22.81816 .4135799 .4445932 26.34709 12.92943 11.92061 11.99834 6.826785

Min 2.2 3.6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0

Max 84 300 145 1 300 105 1 1 160 65 75 75 26

Measurment Percentage Percentage Hours Yes=1 No=0 Hours Hours Yes=1 No=0 Yes=1 No=0 Hours Pounds Units Hours Hours

As we can see from the table above, there are some extreme and unrealistic results observed from the output. The maximum Average University Entry Score result was 300, which is inconsistent because the variable is measured in percentage and the maximum possible value is 100. This student maybe has entered his UCAS score by mistake instead of his average mark. Another student has answered that he has studied for 300 hours prior exam period in the library, which again is impossible because of the time constraint of 168 hours per week. In addition, a student has inputted a figure of 160 hours as a part-time job which again is almost impossible

BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance

2011

considering the fore-mentioned time constrain. These outliers could have resulted due to students misinterpretation on the survey questions. Correlations In the table below we can examine several correlations between the explained variable Average Score and the explanatory variables. The STATA summary shows a positive, although very weak relationship of 7% between students pre-university academic scores and their current performance at university, which indicates that students who have put continuous efforts in High School tend to do the same in university and perform better than those with low pre-university grades. Recent UKbased study by Duff (2004) confirms our theory that good prior academic achievement, as measured by results in high school, leads to better student performance at university. According to the findings below, living in campus is positively associated to students academic performance with a positive correlation of 7%. This can be explained with the fact that students who live closer to university have easier access to university educational facilities at any time, especially during examination period, when the library facilities are open twenty four hours. On the other hand the amount of time students spend on non-academic activities, such as undertaking part-time work or speaking on the phone to their family and friends show a negative correlation to their academic performance. These are expressed by negative coefficients of -0.0721 and -0.1062 consecutively, which means that, the more time students spend working or talking on the phone, the lower their academic performance will be. Unexpectedly a positive correlation of around 3% exists between hours of lectures missed and students grades. One possible reason for this may be the fact that students utilize the hours missed in lectures on individual study or maybe due to the small size of the sample the results may not be totally accurate. Furthermore, there is a positive relationship of 0.0624 between Study Skills Workshops and first year average results. This indicates that the workshops, offered by the university, have provided solid background knowledge to students for their exams.

BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance
Variable Description Average Score
1.0000

2011
Facebook Usage

Uni Entry Skipped Score Lectures

Study Skills Library Workshop Study

Live on Campus

Part-Time Phone Job Bill

Average score

Uni Entry Score 0.0679

Skipped Lectures 0.0304

1.0000

-0.0434 -0.0806

1.0000 -0.1280 1.0000

Study Workshop 0.0624 Library Study

-0.0774

-0.1276

-0.0413

0.2069

1.0000

Live on Campus 0.0366 Part-Time Job Phone Bill

-0.0721 -0.1062

-0.1743

-0.1190

0.0427

0.1668

1.0000

-0.1035 -0.0414 0.0978

-0.0252 0.0290 0.0622

-0.1239 -0.0111 0.0189

-0.1619 0.1618 0.3028

-0.0524 0.0007 0.0007

1.0000 -0.1111 -0.1136 1.0000 0.0867 1.0000

Facebook Usage 0.0040

Regression Model This section describes an empirical regression model for the determinants of students performance using the cross-sectional data from the BS220 students survey. The analysis uses a multiple regression model to study the determinants of the dependant or Explained variable students academic performance which is measured by the students average score of first year modules at the university. To determine the significance of the independent variables that could explain the dependent variable I have executed several regression analyses between the originally selected ten explanatory variables and our dependant variable.
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Nevertheless, due to the small size and accuracy of our sample data most of these variables were not enough statistically significant at the 95% confidence interval to explain the dependant variable. Their P values were higher than 5%. However, I indentified six independent variables to determine first year students performance. BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics
| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance

2011

In my empirical research, I will perform the regression analysis on the subsequent explanatory variables: live on campus, study skills workshop, use of mathematics centre, TV watched, part-time employment and alcohol consumption. Estimation Strategy Having considered the above explanatory variables, the specification model was derived as follows: Acad.Perf. = 1 Live Camp. + 2 Study Work. +3 Math. Cent. + 4 TV Watch + 5 Part-t. Job + 6 Alcohol + i The explanation of the variables in the model is the following: 1 Live Camp. denotes whether the student live on campus or not 2 Study Work. denotes have the students used the Study skills workshop service provided by the university 3 Math. Cent. denotes have the students used the Math center service provided by the university 4 TV Watch signifies the number of hours students spend watching TV weekly 5 Part-t. Job signifies the number of hours students spend doing part-time job weekly 6 Alcohol denotes how many units of alcohol the students consume weekly i is the error term.

This model is used to measure how much does a unit change in one of explanatory variables leads to a particular unit change in the explained variable. The inclusion of the i (the residual term) means that we have some unobserved variables, random
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BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance

2011

disturbance or the accuracy of our data is not reliable. Seeing as the sample data observed is quite small compared to the whole population, several problems are likely to arise such as the problems of multicollinearity. This mainly occurs when the regressors are more highly correlated with one another than with the dependent variable. To test for the presence of such abnormalities I will estimate the varianceinflation factor (VIF). Another possible statistical problem that primarily occurs in cross-section data is the heteroskedasticity. This exists when the magnitudes (of error term) continuously increase and decreasing with the number of variables observed. In order to indentify the presence of this problem I will perform a Whites General Test using STATA. Econometrics Results The estimation results for BS220 survey are reported in the table below. The total number of observations is 79. By looking at the T values of the variables we can determine which one of them are significant in explaining the students performance. In our mode not all of them are significant enough and they explain only 8.60% of the variation in the dependent variable, which is relatively small. This means that a large part of around 91.4% of the variation is missing. This can be due to the accuracy of the survey data and the size of the sample which was quite small to accurately represent the whole population.

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BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance
Variables Regression Coefficient Live On Campus Study Skills Workshops Use of Math Center TV Watched Part-Time Job Alcohol Consumption Cons R-squared Prob > F 67.81386 0.0859 0.3552 2.592498 26.16 0.000 62.64581 -7.129188 -.2018369 -.0422431 .0242731 3.15224 .225476 .0548477 .1251488 -2.26 -0.90 -0.77 0.19 0.027 0.374 0.444 0.847 .6524029 1.39903 Standard Error 3.590289 3.56374 0.18 0.39 0.856 0.696 -6.504706 -5.705155 T- values p>t

2011

[95% Conf Interval]

7.809512 8.503215

-13.41306 -.8453122 -.6513151 -.1515801 -.2252065 .2476412 .0670939 .2737527

72.98191

Estimated Coefficients The coefficients for Live on campus and Study skills workshops are positive which means that students who live close to university and attend workshops in the Learning Development center will increase their academic performance by 0.65 and 1.4 marks respectively. On the other hand the negative coefficients of the variables TV watched and Part-time jobs indicate that a one unit increase in the time that students spend watching television or work tend to decrease their average marks by 0.2 and 0.04 respectively. Unexpectedly the regression analysis outcome shows, that students who make use of the math center are going to have 7.1 marks lower than other students. This I consider as either a mistake in the dataset or maybe students who use the math center are really bad in mathematics and these personal tutorials will not help them to improve their mark. Finally, the positive coefficient of alcohol of 0.02 shows that every unit of alcohol consumed will lead to 0.02 increase in the student mark. This I can relate to the fact that when students go out with friends more often, they consume alcohol, but they also relax and release themselves from and stress and therefore are more productive in their exams. Unfortunately almost all of the variable, except the use of math center, have low T values and relatively high confidence levels. This means that the variables in the regression model do not affect the Explained variable significantly and other variables are responsible for this. I tried various different combinations with all the variables provided in the data set but the outcomes were the same or even with lower T values and confidence levels. To solve this problem we may need a larger sample from the population and conduct further tests in order to achieve satisfactory results. BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics
| Candidate No. 150851

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Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance

2011

Goodness of fit and diagnostic tests As mention previously, the R-squared value of the regression explains only 8.6% of our data variation, which is a very small proportion. This determines the need for an increase of our observations and further testing. I have also performed the VIF and White test to detect if our expression model contains any multicollinearity or heteroskedasticity. The output shown below indicates that the model is free of any multicollinearity as the VIF values for all the variables are less than 10. The Explanatory variables used in our expression model are not highly correlated to each other more than to the dependant variable.

Variable
TV Watched Alcohol Consumption Live On Campus Part-Time Job Study Skills Workshops Use of Math Center Mean VIF

VIF

1/VIF

1.17 1.10 1.09 1.03 1.03 1.03 1.03

0.851935 0.906962 0.915507 0.966622 0.971603 0.971867

The White Test has also been performed in order to check whether there is problem of Heteroskedasticity. From the table below we can see that the value of probability > chi 2 is 0.5102, which is much higher than 0.1, therefore we accept the hypotheses of Homoskedasticity, and conclude that our expression model used in our data is free of any Heteroskedasticity; i.e. there is no variability in the magnitude of our error term.
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BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance
White's test for Ho: Against Ha: chi2(12) Prob > chi2 Homoskedasticity unrestricted heteroskedasticity 23.16 0.5102

2011

Conclusion The core purpose of this paper was to test the relationship that exists between First year students results and a set of different lifestyle variables. We have used a multiple regression linear model to estimate the coefficients of our independent variables and see how they influence the dependant variable. Using this information presented in our data set, we tried to get the most accurate results that are useful in understanding the factors that affect students performance. The results revealed that First year academic performance is dependent on students amount of TV watched and part-time job hours per week, because it represents the amount of time forgone watching TV or working, thus the opportunity cost of which is studying, if we assume that this is the best students opportunity forgone. The data has also revealed that attending study skills workshops and living on campus have increased individuals abilities to perform better on test. However, due to the inaccuracy in some parts of our data I am uncertain about the validity of this conclusion. Furthermore, the results also indicate that the utilization of the math centre service by students affect negatively their performance, which is probably due to the failure of our data. Based on the above mentioned econometrics results the following implication are expected to Improve first year students performance: University governance should put high emphasize on providing easily accessible workshops, but also promote awareness about the services among the students
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BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance

2011

University accommodation governance should charge lower accommodation fees for its students in order to attract them to live on campus and enable them to use university and library facilities more often

It is strongly recommended for students to spend less time watching TV, because that would provide them will spare time for more beneficial activities such as studying or sports

To reach a more accurate conclusion a larger data sample is required, as this will enable us to carry out more complex and reliable statistical analysis. This sample was taken only from students studying BS2220 module, and is therefore only representative of segmental students. I would recommend the survey to be stretched to all first year students in Aston University giving us a better indication of how the variables that have been chosen actually affect students educational success. Many of the results we have found may be coincidental and anomalous. However, using a greater sample size will eliminate this doubt and give us a more accurate result.

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BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance References:

2011

1. McKenzie, K. & Schweitzer, R. (2001) Who Succeeds at University? Factors predicting academic performance in first year Australian university students. Higher Education Research & Development Vol. 20(1): pp.21-33. 2. Lebcir, R. M., Wells, H. & Bond, A., (2008) Factors affecting academic performance of international students in project management courses: A case study from a British Post 92 University International Journal of Project Management pp.5-10. 3. Dorman, J. P., Fraser, B. J., & McRobbie, C. J. (1997) Relationship between school-level and classroom level environments in secondary schools. Journal of Educational Administration Vol. 35(1): pp.74-91. 4. Michman. R., Mazze, E., & Greco, A. (2003) Lifestyle Marketing: researching the new American consumer, 1 edition. London: Praeger Publishers.

5. Burd, E. & Hodgson, B. (2004) Attendance, and Attainment: a five-year study, CETL- Active
Learning in Computing, South Rd, Durham. 6. Rochford, C. & Connolly, M. & Drennan, J. (2009) Paid part-time employment and academic performance of undergraduate nursing students Vol. 29(6): pp.601-60.

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BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance

2011

Appendix
Commands used: .sum .cor .reg .vif .esta imtest, white

Log file

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BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851

Analysis of the impact of academic and non-academic activities on first year students performance

2011

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BS2220: Introduction to Econometrics

| Candidate No. 150851