THE IMPACT OF PAID WORK ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CANBERRA*
by Craig Applegate and Anne Daly Division of Business, Law and Information Sciences University of Canberra
* The research reported in this paper was approved by the Human Ethics Committee at the University of Canberra. We also discussed the project with the Student Association and Student Administration at the University. We would like to thank Tim Bradley, Mandy Yap and especially Rebecca Cassells for their excellent research assistance. We would also like to thank Diane Adams, Paula Higgins, Coralie McCormack, David Sneddon, Gerald Tarrant, Adam Verwey, Margaret Wallace and an anonymous referee for their comments and assistance on the project. The paper has benefited from comments following presentations at the University of Canberra, a Conference on Teaching Economics in Auckland New Zealand, the annual Conference of Economists held in Canberra and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in London. .
CLMR DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES 05/1 the Centre for Labour Market Research, The University of Western Australia, Crawley WA 6009 Tel: (08) 6488 8672 Fax: (08) 6488 8671 email: pmadden@biz.uwa.edu.au http://www.clmr.ecel.uwa.edu.au
The Centre wishes to acknowledge the support of The Western Australian Department of Education and Training
Abstract This paper uses data collected from a survey of students at the University of Canberra to test the effects of paid employment on the average grade obtained in second semester 2002. The results show that students that do well at school also tend to do well at university and that private study improves grades. Missing classes had a negative effect on grades. Paid employment did not have a large effect on grades. Our results show that some paid employment improves grades slightly but working more than 22 hours per week has a negative effect.
Growing numbers of
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