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The purpose of this study had four components: first to determine whether adifference exists between the GPAs of extracurricular participants and non-participants;second to determine whether a difference exists between the GPA of participants inathletics and non-participants in athletics; third to determine whether a difference existsbetween the GPA of participants in co-curricular activities and non-participants in cocurricular activities; and fourth to determine whether a difference exists between the GPAof at least two of the following: participants in athletics, participants in co-curricularactivities, or participants in both athletics and co-curricular activities. Additionally, thestudy determined if the difference in GPA for any of the above-mentioned groups wasaffected by ethnicity or gender.This non-experimental quantitative study involved three high schools (grades 9-12) in the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District in Missouri. The sample included 5,261high school students during the 2008-2009 school year. For this study, the dependentvariable was cumulative unweighted GPA. The independent variable took the form ofcategories. There were three independent variables – participation, gender, and ethnicity.Once the data was compiled and organized in an Excel spreadsheet, the researcherentered the data into SPSS Version Faculty Pack 16.0 to analyze. Two-factor ANOVAwere conducted for all hypotheses and Tukey post hoc analyses were used to analyzefurther significant interaction effects.Analysis of data revealed a significant difference for the main effect for GPAbetween participants and non-participants. An interaction effect for participation byethnicity was also significant which indicates that ethnicity does affect the differences in GPA between participants and non-participants. Participants outperformed nonparticipants for all sub-groups with the exception of Black and Hispanic participants.The tests conducted for the second research question showed a significantdifference in GPA between athletics participants and non-participants. The interactioneffect for athletic participation by ethnicity was also significant indicating that ethnicitydoes affect the differences in GPA between athletics participants and non-participants.Once again, participants outperformed non-participants for all sub-groups with theexception of Black and Hispanic participants.The third research question reflected participants and non-participants in cocurricular activities. Results showed the main effect for co-curricular participationprovided evidence for a significant difference in GPA between participants and nonparticipants. When gender was tested, the interaction effect for co-curricularparticipation by gender was significant indicating that gender does affect the differencesin GPA between participants and non-participants. Female participants outperformed allother students. Male participants did not outperform male non-participants.The final research question tests demonstrated a main effect significant differencein GPA based on the type of activity students participated. The interaction effect forathletics, co-curricular, or both types of participation by gender was significant. Femaleparticipants outperformed all other students. Male participants did not outperform malenon-participants. Once again, male participants were the exception.Recommendations for further research included replicating the study using dataover a longer period than one school year to analyze the outcomes, and replicating thestudy by adding a qualitative component – making it a mixed research design. A researcher could gather information by interviewing randomly selected students in eachcategory about the perceptions of participants and non-participants. Anotherrecommendation is to replicate the study using another dependent variable such as stateassessment data or ACT scores or another population such as middle level learners. |
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