Do the best students sit together? And the less diligent ones?

Do the best students sit together? And the less diligent ones?

• Do the best students sit together? And the less diligent ones?

• When do the students give up the courses?

• Where do the students who give up the course sit?

• Do students who sit alone get better marks than those who sit in pairs?

• Do the students who regularly attend to class get better marks?

• Do students always try to sit on the same chairs?

• How much does the distance between the students and the professor affect the students’ marks?

• Students who sit close to the professor get the best marks.

• Students who sit in the last rows get the worst marks.

• Birds of a feather flock together.

• Initial Date: Sep 29, 2013

• Final Date: Jan 22, 2015

• Sample Size: 255 students (2160 attendances)

• Place: Technical University of Valencia.

• Degrees:

• Bachelor in Industrial Design Engineering (IDE)
• Master in Computer Science Engineering (MCE)
• Associate degree in Computer Engineering (ACE)
• Bachelor in Computer Engineering (BCE), and
• Master of Software Engineering, Formal Methods, and Information Systems (MSEFMIS).

• Subjects:

• Development of Reliable and Quality Software (DRQS)
• Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA)
• Advanced Tools for Software Development (ATSD)
• Graphical User Interfaces (GUI)
• Applied Computing (AC), and
• Programming (PRG)

• To collect the data we used AWAD

• It allows for automatic data collection and processing
• It stores the row and column where each student is sat when logged in
• In those lecture halls without computers, the row and column were taken manually
• At least one official exam was registered for each course

• AWAD provides:

• The average mark of a chair
• Times a chair was used
• Times a chair was used by students who gave up the course

Do the best students sit together? And the less diligent ones?

• Do the best students sit together? And the less diligent ones?

• It seems so (a difference of marks lower than one tenth)

• When do the students give up the courses?

• In the first third of the academic year

• Where do the students who give up the course sit?

• In the last two rows

• Do students who sit alone get better marks than those who sit in pairs?

• Yes, from 13% to 16% higher marks

• Do the students who regularly attend to class get better marks?

• Yes, 13.43% higher vs 26.17% lower than the average

• Do students always try to sit on the same chairs?

• Half of them yes

• How much does the distance between the students and the professor affect the students’ marks?

• The closer, the better