«Warning: studying can seriously affect your grades»

A report by two professors provides proof that the number of hours you spend studying has an effect on your grades

Does studying affect grades? Ralph and Todd Stinebrickner published what they say is the first persuasive evidence that it does. In their words, there is a “causal effect of studying on grade performance”.

Ralph Stinebrickner is a professor of mathematics and computer science at Berea College in the US. Todd, his son, is a professor of economics at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Their report appears in the Berkeley Electronic Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy.

People assume blithely that studying affects grades. The Stinebrickners say that there was never any real proof. They tell how others had sought ─ and failed ─ to find some:

“The difficulty of providing information about the causal effect of studying is highlighted by an ambitious 10-year study by Schuman et al at the University of Michigan. The authors took four different approaches... but could not uncover a (conditional) correlation which indicated evidence of the ‘hypothesised substantial association’.”

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► The Guardian