A study published last week in the online journal PLOS One鈥攁nd conducted by a team of high school students partnering with researchers through a National Science Foundation outreach program鈥攕uggests the grades of friends can rise or fall toward the average of their social circle over time.
The study is described as the first to attempt to use social-contagion theory鈥攖he idea that concepts and behaviors can spread through a social network much like the way a cold spreads through a school鈥攖o analyze changes in students鈥� grades.
The authors asked 160 juniors at Maine-Endwell High School in Endwell, N.Y., to identify, on a list of the rest of the class, the students considered close friends, friends, acquaintances, relatives, or unknown. The authors then linked the social circles with administrative data, including grade point average (as translated into class ranking), attendance, and disciplinary actions, for the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years.
They found that students whose friends鈥� average GPA was higher than their own at the start of the study were more likely to improve their grades, and that students with a higher GPA than their friends鈥� were more likely to drop in grades. The study also offers some evidence that this isn鈥檛 just a matter of birds of a feather flocking together: Close friendships鈥攖he ones most likely to be formed on the basis of personality similarities鈥攚ere less strongly related to changes in a student鈥檚 GPA than were the relationships of students considered friends, but not as close.
The study was part of NetSci High, a pilot NSF project intended to teach students and educators about emerging science methods. When the study was conducted, four of its authors were themselves high school students.
