Benchmarking of Virginia Tech GPAs to Curtin University course-weighted averages
Having a single numerical value to represent a student’s overall level of achievement is useful. At Curtin University of Technology, it is the Course Weighted Average (CWA) – an average of percentage grades received for each course. At Virginia Tech, it is the Grade Point Average (GPA) – an average...
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| Format: | Conference Paper |
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Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
2009
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47531 |
| _version_ | 1848757858218278912 |
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| author | Lindsay, Euan Goff, Richard |
| author2 | Jeff Froyd |
| author_facet | Jeff Froyd Lindsay, Euan Goff, Richard |
| author_sort | Lindsay, Euan |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Having a single numerical value to represent a student’s overall level of achievement is useful. At Curtin University of Technology, it is the Course Weighted Average (CWA) – an average of percentage grades received for each course. At Virginia Tech, it is the Grade Point Average (GPA) – an average of values based upon letter grades for courses (letters initially based upon percentage grades). To facilitate exchanges and/or transfers between U.S., Australian and other institutions, it is useful to benchmark the equivalency of GPAs to CWAs. The difficulty comes through the differences in which grade corresponds to which mark. At Virginia Tech, a mark of 71% earns a C-, which is a GPA of 1.7; below the 2.0 required for graduation. By contrast, at Curtin a CWA of 71% results in a degree with honors. This paper reports on a study of cohorts of freshman engineering students at each institution ranked by GPA and CWA, and comparisons drawn at equivalent percentile ranks within each cohort. This yielded an equation to convert GPA to CWA allowing comparable student achievement at the two universities to be evaluated and contributing greatly to facilitating exchanges and/or transfers between U.S. and Australian universities. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T09:34:46Z |
| format | Conference Paper |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-47531 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T09:34:46Z |
| publishDate | 2009 |
| publisher | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-475312017-09-13T15:37:43Z Benchmarking of Virginia Tech GPAs to Curtin University course-weighted averages Lindsay, Euan Goff, Richard Jeff Froyd Having a single numerical value to represent a student’s overall level of achievement is useful. At Curtin University of Technology, it is the Course Weighted Average (CWA) – an average of percentage grades received for each course. At Virginia Tech, it is the Grade Point Average (GPA) – an average of values based upon letter grades for courses (letters initially based upon percentage grades). To facilitate exchanges and/or transfers between U.S., Australian and other institutions, it is useful to benchmark the equivalency of GPAs to CWAs. The difficulty comes through the differences in which grade corresponds to which mark. At Virginia Tech, a mark of 71% earns a C-, which is a GPA of 1.7; below the 2.0 required for graduation. By contrast, at Curtin a CWA of 71% results in a degree with honors. This paper reports on a study of cohorts of freshman engineering students at each institution ranked by GPA and CWA, and comparisons drawn at equivalent percentile ranks within each cohort. This yielded an equation to convert GPA to CWA allowing comparable student achievement at the two universities to be evaluated and contributing greatly to facilitating exchanges and/or transfers between U.S. and Australian universities. 2009 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47531 10.1109/FIE.2009.5350580 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Lindsay, Euan Goff, Richard Benchmarking of Virginia Tech GPAs to Curtin University course-weighted averages |
| title | Benchmarking of Virginia Tech GPAs to Curtin University course-weighted averages |
| title_full | Benchmarking of Virginia Tech GPAs to Curtin University course-weighted averages |
| title_fullStr | Benchmarking of Virginia Tech GPAs to Curtin University course-weighted averages |
| title_full_unstemmed | Benchmarking of Virginia Tech GPAs to Curtin University course-weighted averages |
| title_short | Benchmarking of Virginia Tech GPAs to Curtin University course-weighted averages |
| title_sort | benchmarking of virginia tech gpas to curtin university course-weighted averages |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/47531 |