Tim Ramos STAT 312 Final Project Objective: Gather data to find whether a relationship exists between quarterly

GPA and number of hours worked per week in an industry-related job. Use results to determine optimal number of hours to work per week next quarter in order to achieve a 3.5 GPA. Data: Data consisting of Fall 2013 GPA and average number of hours worked per week was collected from a sample of 20 Cal Poly Computer Science/Software Engineering majors with industry-related jobs (software development, testing, etc). The sample is a judgment sample since elements for the sample were chosen by me personally and screened to meet my desired specifications. The experiment was designed to use a sample with similar demographics as my own as the conclusions drawn from the experiments results are intended to be applied to my own scheduling process. This data may vary based on unaccounted external factors such as class schedule, living conditions, and other incidents or factors out of our control. Furthermore, job positions, travel times, and other workrelated factors are not accounted for as well. Question: Is there a correlation between number of hours worked per week and GPA? If so, describe the relationship and use it to calculate the number of hours to work needed to attain a desired 3.5 quarterly GPA. Explanatory Variable: average number of hours worked per week Response: Fall 2013 quarterly GPA Graphical summary and analysis: A linear regression t-test was performed to determine whether there is a correlation between average number of hours worked per week and quarterly GPA as follows: Null hypothesis: B equals 0 and P equals 0 (no correlation between variables) Alternate hypothesis: B does not equal 0 and P does not equal 0 (correlation exists between variables) Alpha: .05 Data was input to a TI-84 calculator and a linear regression t-test was applied to generate the following results: t = -5.87257 p = 1.46461 x 10^-5 Since p is less than alpha, we reject the null hypothesis and conclude with 95% confidence that there is a correlation between the explanatory variable (number of hours worked per week) and the response (GPA).

Hours worked per week vs GPA of Cal Poly CS/SE majors

4 3.5 3 y = -0.0736x + 4.0758 R = 0.6571

Fall 2013 Performance (GPA)

2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Average time worked per week (hours)

Data values were plotted on the graph above. A regression analysis was performed to produce the equation y = -0.0736x + 4.0758 which describes the relationship between the number of hours worked per week and Fall 2013 GPA. It can be concluded from this equation that each hour worked per week will drop quarterly GPA by about .07 points. The R2 value 0.6571 indicates that the model accounts for 65.71% of the variability of the response data around its mean. To find the optimal number of hours to work per week in order to attain a minimum 3.5 GPA, we apply 3.5 as the value of y in the equation y = -0.0736x + 4.0758 to obtain x = 7.82 hours. Rounding to the nearest half hour, it can be concluded that a Cal Poly CS/SE major should work a maximum of 8 hours if he/she wishes to obtain a 3.5 GPA. Conclusion: There exists a linear relationship between average hours worked per week and quarterly GPA that can be modeled by the equation y = -0.0736x + 4.0758. If I would like to reach my goal of obtaining a 3.5 GPA next quarter, I should ideally work no more than 8 hours per week.