Understanding the drivers of student outcomes is especially useful because it allows school administrators and educators to identify the best practices. These best practices then can be applied to improve school management and teaching pedagogy. In this report, we analyze two student outcomes – student GPA and average ACT test score for 1000 12th graders at the given school district. Specifically, we want to understand, among all the information we know about these students – demographics (gender, ethnicity, special education status, age, household income, and performance index), AP course taking, GPA and student athlete status – which are predictive of graduation and of average ACT test score for students. In addition, we want to understand if average ACT test score is predictive of graduation or vice versa. Therefore, our research questions are formulated as follows:
- Are the demographics predictive of graduation for students? If so, which aspect of the demographics?
- Are the demographics predictive of average ACT test score for students? If so, which aspect of the demographics?
- Is AP course-taking, GPA and/or student athlete status predictive of graduation for students?
- Is AP course-taking, GPA and/or student athlete status predictive of average ACT test score for students?
- Is average ACT test score predictive of graduation? Or vice versa?