The relationship between course scheduling and student performance

Using 10 years of grade data from a university computer science department we fit a multi-level proportional odds model and find that students earn a higher grade in an afternoon class at 1.15 times the odds for a morning class, even when controlling for GPA. This finding has implications both for student learning and for experimental studies that compare classes without considering the time of day at which they are taught. We find that there are no significant trends for student performance based on term when looking at the department as a whole, though there are such trends for certain courses in particular.