Student optimism – Grading of an experiential learning project

Abstract

<p><em>In order to obtain good grades, students involve themselves in hard work according to the best of their ability, yet an experiential learning project makes it even harder to attain the grades that the students are aiming for. Researches have shown that students are generally optimistic about their grades, yet no research has been conducted in Pakistan to gauge student optimism in grades with regard to experiential learning projects. This study is an attempt to gauge an empirical attempt to gauge students’ optimism towards their grades in an experiential learning project. A sample of 106 students is obtained via purposive sampling technique enrolled in the same university and same course. After being involved in an experiential learning project, they were asked their expected marks which were compared later with their actually obtained marks. Pair sample t-test is applied to figure out whether the average of perceived marks is statistically different than the average of actually obtained marks. The average of expected marks exceeds by 2.14 which is statistically significant at 99.9% confidence interval.</em></p>