Survey

1. C
POST-SECONDARY
EXPECTATIONS IN
YOUNGER GRADESPsychology Research Project
By Harrison Park | Stevens Qiu

2. Hypothesis
Students who are unaware
of post-secondary grade
point averages for
admissions are more likely
to exhibit overconfidence
and select prestigious
universities as their survey
answer.
Douglas College

3. Subject Selection
We requested 15-20 students in
each of the grades from 8 to 10,
to participate in our survey by
going to classes after the bell
and spotting students throughout
the school during lunch time. We
used only grade 8-10s because
we believe they would have the
least background knowledge on
the admissions averages.

4. The experimental
group were given the
admissions averages
for each university and
asked which ones they
would consider going
to, and whether they
believed this to be a
realistic possibility.
Experimental
Group

5. Control Group
• The control group was given the same survey, excluding the questions
providing information regarding the admission requirements.

6. Expected Results
• We expected to see many students who
were told the averages to choose less
prestigious universities. We also expected to
see more “yes” answers for whether or not it
was a realistic possibility from the control
group.
• A response is considered positive if they pick
a prestigious school as their preferred
university and if they believe it is realistic.
• A response is considered negative if they
didn’t pick a prestigious school and rather
picked Douglas or if they think their choices
are unrealistic.

7. Positive
54%Negative
32%
Ambiguous
14%
Control Group
Positive Negative Ambiguous
Positive
61%
Negative
22%
Ambiguous
17%
Experimental Group
Positive Negative Ambiguous
Our Results
Our results did not seem very significant. The Control and Experimental groups saw
little difference (percentage-wise) when factoring in the ambiguous results.
We decided to see how our groups compared, sans the ambiguous answers.

8. Positive
62%
Negative
38%
Control Group
Positive Negative
Positive
74%
Negative
26%
Experimental Group
Positive Negative
Our Results
Surprisingly, the results we attained were significant, when factoring out
ambiguous answers.

9. Variables
A variable that occurred is that some participants
chose not to answer all the questions, which
resulted in ambiguous responses. We chose to
disregard these answers as they would not fit into
the categories of “positive” or “negative” that we
sought to analyze.
Students may also have picked their school of
choice based on their grades, and this would also
be a problem if we had not controlled for it by
asking a variety of students from each grade. Not
just from an honours class or in the VPA hallway.
The students could have a older brother/sister who
already informed them about universities, or there
could have been students who randomly chose
the options as they didn’t know UBC was even a
school.

10. Conclusion
With the difference in percentages of positive answers in the Control Group and
Experimental Group, we can safely conclude that there is a correlation within the study to
support our hypothesis. With the students knowing the GPA requirements for the
universities, there was an additional 11 percent increase in negative responses. Students
who are given statistics regarding admission averages are more likely to be more
realistic, and choose schools that fit their capabilities. Whereas students who are not
given this information, will make choices influenced by overconfidence.