How classroom seating might affect marks Where you sit matters How classroom seating might affect marks David Insa Technical University of Valencia (ITICSE’2016)

Contents Motivation Preliminary Questions Initial Hypothesis The Experiment The Sample Collected Data Results Analysis Answers Conclusions and Future Work

Motivation Preliminary Questions Do the best students sit together? And the less diligent ones? When do the students give up the courses? Where do the students who give up the course sit? Do students who sit alone get better marks than those who sit in pairs? Do the students who regularly attend to class get better marks? Do students always try to sit on the same chairs? How much does the distance between the students and the professor affect the students’ marks?

Motivation Initial Hypothesis Students who sit close to the professor get the best marks. Students who sit in the last rows get the worst marks. Birds of a feather flock together.

Contents Motivation Preliminary Questions Initial Hypothesis The Experiment The Sample Collected Data Results Analysis Answers Conclusions and Future Work

The Experiment Sample Initial Date: Sep 29, 2013 Final Date: Jan 22, 2015 Sample Size: 255 students (2160 attendances) Place: Technical University of Valencia. Degrees: Bachelor in Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) Master in Computer Science Engineering (MCE) Associate degree in Computer Engineering (ACE) Bachelor in Computer Engineering (BCE), and Master of Software Engineering, Formal Methods, and Information Systems (MSEFMIS). Subjects: Development of Reliable and Quality Software (DRQS) Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) Advanced Tools for Software Development (ATSD) Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) Applied Computing (AC), and Programming (PRG)

The Experiment Collected Data To collect the data we used AWAD It allows for automatic data collection and processing It stores the row and column where each student is sat when logged in In those lecture halls without computers, the row and column were taken manually At least one official exam was registered for each course AWAD provides: The average mark of a chair Times a chair was used Times a chair was used by students who gave up the course

The Experiment The average mark of a chair Average marks of each seat considering the marks of all the students who sat there

The Experiment Times a chair was used Times a chair was used ignoring the fact that a seat can be used several times by the same student

The Experiment Times a chair was used by students who gave up the course Times a chair was used ignoring the fact that a seat can be used several times by the same student

The Experiment We processed the data to obtain global results Step 0: We divided the 11 groups into 2 main groups Lectures Practicals

The Experiment We processed the data to obtain global results Step 1: We asign a score out of 10 1st row 5,97 4,75 5,18 8,08 - 2nd row 5,85 5,5 6,57 5,63 7,61 6 7,37 3rd row 5,74 5,03 4,06 4,17 6,67 5,78 6,89 4th row 6,34 4,25 7,33 5th row 1st row 7,39 5,88 6,41 10,00 - 2nd row 7,24 6,81 8,13 6,97 9,42 7,43 9,12 3rd row 7,10 6,23 5,02 5,16 8,25 7,15 8,53 4th row 7,85 5,26 9,07 5th row

The Experiment We processed the data to obtain global results Step 1: We asign a score out of 10 Step 2: We make the groups comparable 1st row 7,39 5,88 6,41 10,00 - 2nd row 7,24 6,81 8,13 6,97 9,42 7,43 9,12 3rd row 7,10 6,23 5,02 5,16 8,25 7,15 8,53 4th row 7,85 5,26 9,07 5th row * 1st row 3 1 6 5 - 2nd row 8 7 4 3rd row 4th row 2 5th row 1st row 1,35 0,36 2,34 1,79 0,61 - 1,07 2nd row 3,52 1,24 3,46 2,96 1,72 0,45 2,22 3rd row 3,02 1,13 2,44 1,88 1,50 1,30 3,01 1,55 4th row 1,22 0,95 0,32 0,55 5th row 0,90

The Experiment We processed the data to obtain global results Step 1: We asign a score out of 10 Step 2: We make the groups comparable Step 3: We obtain the mean of each row among all groups 1st row 1,35 0,36 2,34 1,79 0,61 - 1,07 2nd row 3,52 1,24 3,46 2,96 1,72 0,45 2,22 3rd row 3,02 1,13 2,44 1,88 1,50 1,30 3,01 1,55 4th row 1,22 0,95 0,32 0,55 5th row 0,90 Lectures Practicals

Contents Motivation Preliminary Questions Initial Hypothesis The Experiment The Sample Collected Data Results Analysis Answers Conclusions and Future Work

Results Results for lectures The distance from the teacher does influence the mark

Results Results for practicals The distance from the teacher does influence the mark

Results Answers Do the best students sit together? And the less diligent ones? It seems so (a difference of marks lower than one tenth) When do the students give up the courses? In the first third of the academic year Where do the students who give up the course sit? In the last two rows Do students who sit alone get better marks than those who sit in pairs? Yes, from 13% to 16% higher marks Do the students who regularly attend to class get better marks? Yes, 13.43% higher vs 26.17% lower than the average Do students always try to sit on the same chairs? Half of them yes How much does the distance between the students and the professor affect the students’ marks? The closer, the better

Contents Motivation Preliminary Questions Initial Hypothesis The Experiment The Sample Collected Data Results Analysis Answers Conclusions and Future Work

Conclusions and future work We have presented the results of an experiment performed in an engineering school. The analysis of the results has provided several interesting conclusions and ideas that would be very interesting to share with other professors and colleagues. Visit: http://www.dsic.upv.es/~jsilva/seatsandmarks/ Main contributions: -> New method to treat the data based on chairs (instead of students) -> Experimental data publicly available Main results: -> The students’ distribution does influence the students’ performance

Conclusions and future work -> Extend the study to other degrees and subjects -> Study the gender -> Study the social context -> Study the “repeater” condition -> Extend AWAD to fully automate the process (interested people may contact us) -> Do you have any other ideas? Please, tell me!

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