Ensuring academic success of student-athletes: Research on the relationship of academic measures of success and graduation rates

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has implemented metrics to track the academic success of student-athletes in higher education. This study was designed to evaluate the relationship between three metrics used by the NCAA as part of it monitoring and compliance program for academic achievement by student-athletics. Our study examined the relationships between Academic Progress Rate (APR), Graduation Success Rate (GSR), and Federal Graduation Rate (FGR). The data set consisted of 720 total APR, GSR, and FGR scores for the years 2003-2006 obtained from 14 Southeastern Conference (SEC) programs. A subset of six sports with samples sizes of 20 or larger were analyzed in detail. Distributions for FGR, GSR, and APR exhibited substantial differences. Overall, the broadest distribution was observed among FGR estimates. GSR scores were positively related to FGRs. However, both GSR and APR scores were skewed toward high levels of success suggesting that they exhibit limited predictive power. Overall, our results indicated that additional research is needed to optimize both the GSR and APR metrics so they can more precisely serve as indicators of academic progress.