“How to maintain a good CGPA in an undergraduate program”

Q:1 Define and explain the following terms in detail.

RESEARCH PROCESS
The research process consists of a series of systematic procedures that a researcher must go
through in order to generate knowledge that will be considered valuable by the project and focus
on the relevant topic. To conduct effective research, there are following research process steps:
1-Selecting the research area/problem
2- Formulating research aim, objectives and research questions or developing hypotheses. ...
3- Conducting the literature review. ...
4- Selecting data collection methods. ...
5- Collecting the primary/secondary data. ...
6- Data analysis through running a model on R. A model should be well define from any related
articles, journal or dissertations.
7-Check if results are statistically significant then interpret them
7- Reaching conclusions. ...
8- Giving references.

THEORATICAL FRAMEWORK
Is a collection of interrelated concepts that can hold or support a theory of research work and
guide a research.

Developing a theoretical framework

Theoretical framework is a logically developed, described and elaborated network of
associations among the variables deemed relevant to the problem.

Features of theoretical framework

1-Specify the theory used
2-Identify, discuss and label the variables3-Discuss and explain directions of the relationships.
4-Uses a schematic diagram to assist the interpretation

Lengths in research paper

While there are usually no hard and fast rules related to the length of your theoretical framework,
it is most common to keep it within three to five pages.

Structuring your theoretical framework

The most important thing is to create a clear, logical structure. There are a few ways to do this:
Draw on your research questions, structuring each section around a question or key concept.

Main purpose in research paper

Theoretical framework is used to limit the scope of the relevant data by focusing on specific
variables and defining the specific viewpoint [framework] that the researcher will take in
analyzing and interpreting the data to be gathered.

RESEARCH DESIGN
The plan of study followed to fulfill the research objectives or test the hypotheses.
Its function is to ensure that evidence generated from the data would be able to answer the
research question
Primary data can be generated from 3 basic research designs: exploratory, descriptive and causal
research:
Exploratory research
Undertaken when a researcher intends to explore something new or clarify ambiguous problems
in a particular situation
Certain problem of interest exists and it has not been clearly defined.

Descriptive research
“Describes” something which could be a phenomenon, a current situation or the characteristic of
a group of organizations, people, etc.
Answers the question of who, what, where, when and how of a particular issue or situation
Causal research
Research approach where the researcher investigates the cause and effect relationship
Can experiment on manipulating the hypothesized independent variable on the dependent
variable

Longitudinal research
A type of study in which the data is collected at two or more points in time
To investigate changes in people’s behavior or the effect of introducing some changes in an
organization.
Needs longer time and more effort to complete, hence could be more costly

Cross sectional research

The data is collected just once (at a particular time) to enable the researcher to answer the
research questions
Can be collected over a period of a few days, weeks or months
Most frequently used in exploratory and descriptive research

Q2. Take the data of at least 30 students from 7th Semester BBA Students, data set comprises
of the following variables.
Write Introduction
Write Literature Review (at least 5 references)
Make Bar Plots for Gender and Ethnicity

Introduction:
Maintaining a good CGPA in university is very important if you are willing to good in the future.
for this purpose, research have been conducted to find the variables which can affect the CGPA.
In this research paper, Questionnaires and survey methods are used. The population of Third year
faculty of BBA students of Bahria University, Islamabad is 250 students. Among them 75 students are
from Human Resource Management. Using random sampling method, 35 students of Human Resource
Management were selected to investigate the factors influencing Cumulative Grade Point Average
(CGPA) of 7th semester students of Bahria University, Islamabad.
Determining the factors that influence students’ performance is not a trivial matter. It may depend on
multiple factors, including socio-economic-behavioral background of students, their family structure and
family environment, personal attitude of a student towards his/her studies, social media usage hours.
level of stress in family or in educational institution, peer pressure, family support financial as well as in
studies, teachers level of teaching, environment of the institute where he/she has been studying,
previous schooling, regularity in attending classes, daily time spent on studies, overall disciplinary
environment/pressure/restrictions in family or in educational institution, living with family (day scholar)
or living in a hostel, educational background of the student (i.e., what sort of institution he or she has
been to before joining university for higher education), what kind of courses he or she has already
studied before undertaking studies, student’s time consumed in extracurricular activities, lack of
preparation for a particular exam, student’s working habits and commitment for studies, self-motivation
and level of healthy competition in class room among the students, gender of the student, father’s
profession and income level, parents’ education, parental pressure, locality where they live, whether
they belong to a main city or a small town, etc.

However, we have chosen the variables including self-study hours, social apps usage hours, ethnicity,
and gender. These factors are more relevant to our local social setup and will make it possible for our
study to provide some policy guidelines where students’ performance may be improved by making some
changes in different controllable factors.

Literature Review:
Determinants of students' performance have been the subject of ongoing debate among educators,
academics, and policy makers. According to the (Norhidayah Ali, 2009) university graduates are
responsible for a country’s economic and social development. Therefore, the performance of students in
universities should be a concern not only to the administrators and educators, but also to corporations
in the labor market. CGPA is one of the main factors considered by the employers while recruiting
workers, especially fresh graduates.

studies have found no relationship between the use of SMUHs and academic performance (Ahmed &
Qazi, 2011; Alwagait et al., 2015; Hargittai & Hsieh, 2010; Kabre & Brown, 2011; Lubis et al., 2012).
Alwagait et al. (2015) carried out an investigation to assess the relationship between time spent on
SMNs and students’ GPAs. They surveyed 104 students and found no linear relationship between them.
Similarly, Kabre and Brown (2011) could not find a relationship between the number of hours spent on
Facebook and academic performance. We were able to identify only two studiesthat found a positive
relationship between students’ academic performance and SMNs use (Ali et al., 2021; Ainin et al., 2015).
Ainin et al. (2015) studied the impact of Facebook use on the academic performance of 1,165 Malaysian
university students. They concluded that increased Facebook use is likely to have a positive influence on
students’ academic performance.

Perlmann and McCann (2002) found that hours studied was the most important factor contributing to
exam grade improvement or decline in undergraduate psychology courses. The studies by Eikeland and
Manger (1992), Okpala et al. (2000), and Perlmann and McCann (2002) used linear or multiple
regression analyses relating exam performance to hours studied. Nonlinear regression equations may
offer an opportunity to better model exam achievement related to hours studied.
Students have to place greater effort in their study to obtain a good grade
in order to fulfil the demands of an employer and this makes academic
achievement the main factor considered by employers in the recruitment
of workers, especially newly graduated students ( Yogendra & Andrew,
2017).

With respect to gender, prior studies have shown interest in assessing the effect of gender differences
on academic performance in elementary school, secondary school, high school, and university (Ahmad
et al., 2015; Ghazvini & Khajehpour, 2011; Ngozi, 2011; Lam et al., 2012). Lam et al. (2012), for instance,
found that girl reported higher levels of engagement and rated higher academic performance as
compared to boys in elementary schools from 12 countries across the world. While examining the
CGPAs of high school students, Ghazvini and Khajehpour (2011) observed that female students achieved
relatively higher scores than males in Literature with the female students are more adaptive to learning
tasks. This trend is further confirmed at the university level. For example, Ngozi (2011) found that
females lead males in arts-related subjects at university, and Ahmad et al. (2015) discovered that female
students at Government College University, Lahore outperformed the male students. Other studies
discovering that females outperformed males include Azmi and Mustapha (2017) and Farooq et al.
(2011).

Thus, a tendency exists for female students to beat male students academically from elementary school
to their adolescence. This would suggest that female students are more serious and committed to
ensuring better academic achievement. Hence, gender is seen as an important variable in predicting
academic performance.

Ethnicity has been reported as one of the determining factors for varying academic performance. In
relationship to ethnic groups, student performances varied amongst the three major ethnicities – the
Malay, Chinese, and Indian (F=96.871, p=.000) (Table 4), hence, supporting hypothesis 2. Specifically,
students’ academic performance at the tertiary level was highest for Chinese students. The finding is
consistent with other studies that found that Chinese students performed better than Malay and Indian
students (Alfan & Othman, 2005) and that Chinese students outperformed Bumiputeras (Azmi & Harith,
2012).
For Gender

Interpretation
In this data set it has been observed that there are more female students then male students.

Interpretation
In this data set it has been observed that there are more students of Punjab ethnicity as compared to
others.

Construct Box and Whisker Plot for CGPA, Self study Hours, Social Apps Usage Hours in
one diagram
Interpretation

From box and whisker plot it has been observed that

Make Histograms for CGPA, Self Study Hours, Social Apps usage Hours
For CGPA

Interpretation

From the dataset taken through survey of 30 students it has been observed that mostly students have
3.0 and 3.5 CGPA .

HISTOGRAM FOR SELF STUDY HOURS

Interpretation

From the dataset taken through survey of 30 students it has been observed that greater no. of students
spend more time studying.

HISTOGRAM FOR SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE HOURS

Interpretation

From the dataset taken through survey of 30 students it has been observed that greater no. of students
spend more time using social media apps.

Construct Scatter Plot for CGPA and Study Hours

Run a regression using SLRM for CGPA and Study Hours, Interpret the Results:

Interpretation
There is a positive relation between CGPA and Self-study hours.
There is a negative relation between CGPA and Social-media usage hours.
CGPA=α+β(Self-study hours)
Confidence Interval=95%
Single-linear regression model
➢ It shows a significant relation because If students self study hours will be zero will be zero on
average daily basis in long run even then their CGPA will be 3.5
➢ Study hours show significant relation with CGPA because If a student start studying 1hour more
on average daily basis then his/her CGPA will be decreased by -0.08679
➢ Since the R-squared of the model is 0.1824 that is less than 0.5 so the model is not good.

Multi-linear regression model

Level of significance 5%
Significance of Beta
H○: β○, β1, β2=0
H1: β○, β1, β2 ≠0
➢ It shows a significant relation because If students self study hours will be zero and social media
usage hours will be zero on average daily basis even then their CGPA will be 3.27
➢ Study hours show insignificant relation with CGPA because If a student start studying 1hour
more on average daily basis even then his/her CGPA will be decreased by -0.004214
➢ Social media usage hours show insignificant relation because If a student starts using 1hour
more social media apps even then his/her CGPA will increase as ----------
➢ Since the R-squared of the model is 0.0007728that is less than 0.5 so the model is not good.

REFERENCES
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e09b/f520f30ffe210c61bd5db1a7e1c68cb06075.pdf
https://gpacalculatorbd.com/maintain-good-cgpa-in-university/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340279934_Impact_of_Social_Media_on_Academic_P
erformance_of_Undergraduate_A_Literature_Review
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anthony-Andrew-
2/publication/319645230_A_Study_On_The_Factors_Influencing_On_Grade_Point_Average_G
PA_With_Special_Reference_To_Third_Year_Commerce_And_Management_Students_Of_Eas
tern_University_Sri_Lanka/links/59c762c90f7e9bd2c0143a90/A-Study-On-The-Factors-
Influencing-On-Grade-Point-Average-GPA-With-Special-Reference-To-Third-Year-Commerce-
And-Management-Students-Of-Eastern-University-Sri-Lanka.pdf

THE END!