The XCEL Study Program

The XCEL Study Program

The XCEL study program gives students skills and information by guaranteeing that they have access to online content such as interactive assessments, tailored learning courses, and attractive multimedia content. As a result, it ensures that pupils understand challenging subjects depending on their individual needs (XCEL Testing Solutions). The curriculum has been successful in passing standardized and consistent knowledge by adopting a research-based learning strategy. The study looked at the impact of extracurricular activities on college students’ academic performance.

Defining Student Success

We defined student success as the pupils’ ability to excel academically as well as in other extracurricular activities. The success of students should not only be dependent on their academic performance, but co-curricular activities should also play a major role in defining the success of the students. Our hypothesis is that academic performance is not the only tool that can be used to measure the success of students. The inclusion criteria will be students aged between fifteen to seventeen years and are either in 1st year to 3rd year of college. Additionally, the study will involve both male and female students who reside inside or outside the college. The exclusion criteria will be students who are not involved in any extracurricular activity. The materials used for collecting data will be questionnaires where each participant will be required to fill a questionnaire. The factors observed in the study will majorly focus on the academic performance and involvement in extracurricular activities. The independent variable in the study will be the extracurricular activities. It defines all the activities that add merit or boost the academic performance of students. They include football, drama clubs, and singing clubs and will be measured by the student’s actively participating in them. The dependent variable will be the academic performance. This involves the grades attained during class work and will be measured by grading of the students.

Data Collection and Analysis

The students will be required to actively engage in extracurricular activities in addition to academic work. On the other hand, the second cohort of students will be required to participate in XCEL study program in addition to their school work. The performance of the two cohorts will later be analyzed. Data collection will be through interviews and facilitated focus groups. Each participant will be required to answer some questions from the group members who will conduct the interview as well as engaging in facilitated focus groups.

The Scientific Method

The steps involved in the scientific method are as follows. One, observe thoroughly scrutinizing the participants if they follow the instructions that are set. Two, ask questions if they have understood all the instructions and if they will be participating till the end of the study. Three, form a hypothesis as a group which is academic performance is not the only tool that can be used to measure the success of students. Four, predicting the results in regards to the hypothesis (Khan Academy). We predict that the hypothesis is true. Five, test the prediction and lastly use the results acquired to make new predictions or hypotheses.

Importance of following the Steps

Collecting data before forming hypothesis will give wrong results as students will not know what they are working on or where to base their data collections. This will, in turn, lead to guesswork, biasness and wrong results. Analysis before completing data collection will also provide wrong results, and the hypothesis will not be studied properly. Students should not conclude their study before collecting data as this will not give the collect results and defining the hypothesis will prove to be difficult. The steps involved in the scientific method are essential as they minimize biasness and ensure that the results are correct and can be justified.

References

Khan Academy. “The Scientific Method.” Khan Academy (2017).

XCEL Testing Solutions. About: XCEL Testing Solutions. 2017. 30 October 2017 .