Academic Success Perceptions

UCLA Digital Humanities 101, Fall 2023

How do we define success?

Academic achievement is often viewed as the end result of a student’s talent and hard work. However, many school and societal factors heavily affect the journey to success and put some individuals at an unfair advantage. This project examines how judgments of success can be flawed and which statistics most heavily influence positive student outcomes for schools in California.

Research Questions

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Why might society’s notion of a “successful” high school be flawed?

What factors in California high schools most strongly correlate to successful student outcomes?

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Project Structure

Timeline

Follow this timeline made in TimelineJS that maps the history of California education from the earliest institutions to the present day.

Narrative

Explore the background research about factors and inhibitors to success in California schools, and our findings from analyzing the data.

About

Learn more about the technical perspectives, the authors, and the resources used to create this project.

Data

View an in-depth breakdown of the datasets used in this project and our critique of their representations of academic success.