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Connections between Autism-Related Characteristics and Postsecondary Gpa
Despite a dramatic recent uptick in the frequency with which autistic students pursue postsecondary education, current literature suggests that fewer than half of these students will complete their studies and earn a degree. Yet there have been remarkably few studies exploring the reasons behind this phenomenon. The few studies addressing these students’ postsecondary outcomes have addressed only enrollment and completion. To date, there have been no large-scale studies exploring one of the key factors affecting student persistence and graduation: their grades. Not only do student grades serve as a more granular and timely indicator of students of secondary success, many employers use GPA as a screening tool when considering applications for employment.
Objectives:
The present study fills an important gap in the literature by examining the relationship between students’ autism-related characteristics and their postsecondary GPAs. The study is guided by an overarching question: To what extent do students autism-related characteristics relate to their academic-year GPAs? The study further explores this relationship by examining the manner in which it varies for students of different racial/ethnic identities, gender identities, and year in school.
Methods:
This study uses 6 variables drawn from a sample of 812 undergraduate students in United States. Students’ institutional records provided information on each students’ GPA, SAT score, race/ethnicity, gender, and year in school (e.g., sophomore, senior). Students’ autism related characteristics were measured via a continuous variable derived from responses to the short form of the Autism Quotient assessment instrument. Any missing data were augmented through Multiple Imputation (MI) or Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) procedures. Analyses presented in this paper include descriptive statistics, comparison of means, correlations, and structural equation models (SEM).
Results:
Counter to the researchers’ expectations, the results reveal no statistically significant relationship between students’ autism-related characteristics and their GPAs. The lack of such a relationship was consistent across both genders, all racial/ethnic groups, and for students at every point in their undergraduate progress. The robustness of these results are evident in their consistency across all of the variations in our statistical analyses.
Conclusions:
These results are important for at least 3 reasons. First, this study’s results may provide some hope and reassurance to autistic individuals who may wish to pursue postsecondary education. These students will benefit from knowing that their academic performance is unlikely to be negatively affected by their autistic traits. Second, the study informs practice by suggesting that interventions to support student completion need not focus on students’ classroom performance. Rather, such interventions should focus on other factors of the postsecondary experience that may be curtailing these students continued enrollment to graduation. Third, because the results suggest that the low graduation rate for autistic students is not likely a result of poor grades, researchers studying the topic will need to examine other potential factors (e.g. social isolation, mental health) that may be causing autistic students to drop out before completing their postsecondary degrees.