Students with the Initial ‘A’ Don’t Get Better Grades
18 Pages Posted: 22 Jun 2010
Date Written: June 21, 2010
Abstract
It has been claimed that students whose first or last name begins with the letters A or B have higher grade point averages than students whose first or last name begins with the letters C or D. This “result” was achieved by a naive and incoherent application of statistical methods. We correctly analyze the problem using a new dataset and conclude that the claim is completely unsupported.
Keywords: name letter effect, spurious correlation
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
McCullough, B. D. and McWilliams, Thomas P., Students with the Initial ‘A’ Don’t Get Better Grades (June 21, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1628403 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1628403
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