What affects student outcomes more: Gpa or participation in co-curricular activities?

Abstract

In this research paper, we examine how grade point average (GPA) and student participation in engineering-related co-curricular activities contribute to social, academic, and professional outcomes at a large public Midwestern R1 engineering college. The outcomes in this study where chosen specifically because we hypothesized that they would be influenced by such participation, and include Bonding Social Capital, Bridging Social Capital, Major Satisfaction, Engineering Identity, and Intent to Persist. Confirmatory Factor Analysis shows excellent construct validity for all scales except for one, which was removed from further analysis. As previously demonstrated, our analysis confirms that participation in co-curricular activities is always related to higher levels on every outcome scale regardless of the type of organization. Furthermore, participants have higher GPAs than non-participants. Linear regression modeling revealed the influence of specific types of organizations and GPA on individual outcomes. A linear regression model that predicts each of the four outcomes was constructed to consider the type of activity and GPA. This analysis shows that all outcomes depend on some combination of type of participation and GPA. Only Bonding Social Capital depends on all types of participation and GPA. Bridging Social Capital is predicted by the participation in the types of organizations whose mission is outward facing, but not on GPA. Engineering Identity depends on GPA and participation in organizations that are related to the engineering enterprise. Only Major Satisfaction is predicted by GPA alone, and not on participation in any of type of organizations. This research shows that even though all the studied outcomes are higher for those who participate in some co-curricular activity, the type of organization and GPA are also influential.