Student Habits vs Academic Performance

An exploratory data analysis project on 1,000 simulated student records mapping daily lifestyle habits against final exam scores. Unlike previous EDA projects, this dataset is designed around a single actionable question — what actually determines how well a student performs academically? Every chart directly answers a piece of that question, making this one of the most story-driven projects in the portfolio.

Goals

Identify which student habits have the strongest relationship with exam performance
Compare the impact of study habits, health factors, screen time, and background variables
Determine whether demographic and environmental factors influence academic outcomes
Build a complete habit-to-performance profile using 22 visualizations across 6 sections

Process

Filled 91 missing values in parental_education_level with the mode (High School)
Engineered two new features — total_screen_time (social media + Netflix) and exam_tier (Poor / Average / Good / Excellent)
Analyzed exam scores across all demographic groups — gender, parental education, part time job status
Progressively explored each habit category — study, attendance, screen time, health, environment — before synthesizing in a final correlation section

Insights

Study hours is the dominant predictor with a correlation of 0.83 — nothing else comes close in this dataset
Mental health is the second strongest factor at 0.32 — psychological wellbeing directly translates to academic performance
Attendance has a surprisingly weak correlation of just 0.09 — showing up to class without studying is not enough
Excellent students spend 1.2 fewer hours on screens daily than poor performing students — a consistent pattern across all tiers
Gender, parental education, internet quality, diet, and extracurricular participation have virtually zero impact on exam scores
The academic success formula this dataset points to is simple — study more and take care of your mental health