University Attendance and Academic Performance: Encouraging Class Attendance

Students’ attitude of skipping classes has become a widespread phenomenon in higher education and is a major concern for university instructors. Brauer (1994) observed that absenteeism causes an unpleasant environment in the... [ view full abstract ]

Students’ attitude of skipping classes has become a widespread phenomenon in higher education and is a major concern for university instructors. Brauer (1994) observed that absenteeism causes an unpleasant environment in the classroom making students who attend classes feel uncomfortable and the professor irritable. According to Romer (1993), absenteeism in economics subjects reached high levels at three ‘relatively elite’ U.S. universities. He highlighted that more students were skipping classes in a big cohort than in a small one, fewer students were skipping classes with quantitative content than non-quantitative and more students were absent in core modules than electives.

Yet, several studies have found a positive association between students’ attendance and performance (Marbuger (2001) Massingham and Herrington (2006), Aden, Yahye and Dahir (2013)) with many of the studies specifically examining the performance of economics students (Romer (1993), Durden and Ellis (1995), Rodgers (2001), Kirby and McElroy (2003)).  Given the consensus in the literature about the significant effect of class attendance or nonattendance on students’ performance, we pursue, firstly, to investigate ways of increasing the class attendance, and secondly, to explore whether the class attendance affects the academic performance. But we break new ground in two areas.

First, no study to date has analysed the relationship between class attendance and academic performance at the postgraduate level. A number of studies have focused on the effect of attendance of students’ performance in undergraduate modules. So, in our study we introduce an incentive scheme in order to motivate higher class attendance in two postgraduate conversion modules: one quantitative economics module and one non-quantitative economics module. These two modules are considered “conversion” modules because they are directed to students without prior knowledge/background in either quantitative or non-quantitative economics module.

A second contribution is the diversity of the students in the sample under examination. The cohorts of students considered in this study are greatly international (95% of the students are not coming from the UK). This element is considered essential because it entails the different cultural characteristics and mind-set that students carry in terms of attending all parts of delivery of the two modules.

Previous studies suggest that students are supportive of seminar attendance linked to module assessment (Hinnet and Bone (2002), Baderin (2005), Massingham and Herrington (2006) and Gbadamosi (2015).  There have been various methods adopted to encourage attendance including implementing positive and negative attendance policies (Rodgers (2002), Self (2012)), requiring students scoring below the median on the midterm exam to attend class (Dobkin, Gil and Marion (2010)) and regularly contacting students by email outlining why attendance at tutorials would be beneficial (Shenker and Eyal (2013)). 

For this study and for both the quantitative and non-quantitative modules, we implemented a positive attendance (and submission) policy.  For the quantitative module, students with perfect attendance received 10% towards their final module grade, and for every seminar missed (8 seminars and 8 seminar submissions in total) the full attendance mark of 10% was reduced by 1.25%.  Similarly, for the non-quantitative module, students received 10% for full attendance (and submission) which was reduced by 1.67% for every seminar missed (there were 6 seminars in total).  Seminar questions were provided to students one week in advance of the relevant seminar and they had to submit their suggested answers in advance.  Attendance at the seminar and the relevant submission of the seminar answers was recorded.  In line with university policy, if a student submitted written documentation (e.g. a medical certificate) as evidence for non-attendance, then no penalty was applied for an absence.  The incentive scheme was explained in the module outline which was made available on the university’s virtual learning environment (Succeed) at the beginning of the semester.  It was also explained to students during the Taught Postgraduate (TPG) induction period and in the first lecture with a number of reminders also given during the semester. 

To evaluate the effectiveness of the incentive scheme on both attendance and performance in both modules, we compare student attendance and performance in the academic year where attendance was recorded, and the incentive scheme was in place (the Trial Year) with the previous academic year where attendance was also recorded but without an incentive scheme in place (the Control Year).  With respect to the learning environment, both years were similar in terms of:

•      Lecturers of the module – the same lecturers delivered the modules in both years; this controls for unobserved heterogeneity in lecturing styles

•      The content and presentation were fundamentally the same in both years

•      The method of assessment was the same in both years except for the incentive scheme.  For the quantitative module there was a mid-semester class test and an end of semester final exam, which were of the same duration and difficulty in both years. The non-quantitative Economics module was assessed by two class tests during the semester, relating to the microeconomics and macroeconomics material respectively. 

•      Attendance was taken at each seminar in both years.

We conduct panel data analysis considering the Trial Year, the academic year the incentive scheme was in place, and the Control Year, the academic year without the incentive scheme in place.  Whilst previous panel data studies have provided mixed results on the effect of attendance, our preliminary results show that both lecture and seminar attendance have a positive and significant effect on student performance.  The results raise the question as to whether mandatory attendance should be introduced for TPG modules in economics.  Generally, the results will contribute to the existing debate as to whether a mandatory attendance policy be introduced in order to enhance the students’ experience (fostering good habits including good staff-student morale) and ultimately their academic performance.

References

Aden, A., Yahye, Z. and A. Dahir (2013). “The Effect of Student’s Attendance on Academic Performance: A Case Study at Simad University Mogadishu,” Academic Research International 4(6): 409-417

Baderin, M. A. (2005). Towards improving students’ attendance and quality of undergraduate tutorials: A case study on law. Teaching in Higher Education, 10, 99–116.

Brauer, J. (1994), “Should Class Attendance Be Mandatory?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 8: 205-15.

Devadoss, S. and J. Foltz (1996), “Evaluation of Factors Influencing Student Class Attendance and Performance,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 78: 499-507.

Dobkin, C., Gil. R. and J. Marion (2010) “Skipping class in college and exam performance: Evidence from a regression discontinuity classroom experiment”, Economics of Education Review, 29(4): 566-575

Durden, G. C. and L. V. Ellis (1995), “The Effects of Attendance on Student Learning in Principles of Economics,” The American Economic Review 85: 343-46.

Gbadamosi, G. (2015) “Should we bother improving students’ attendance at seminars”, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 52(2): 196-206.

Hinnet, K. and A. Bone (2002) “Diversifying assessment and developing judgement in legal education”, in  R. Burridge, K. Hinnet, A. Paliwala, & T. Varnava (Eds.), Effective learning and teaching in law (pp. 52–80). London: Kogan Page.

Kirby, A. and B. McElroy (2003) “The effect of attendance on grade for first year economics students in University College Cork”, The Economic and Social Review, 34:311-326

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Massingham, P., & Herrington, T. (2006). “Does attendance matter? An examination of student attitudes, participation, performance and attendance”, Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 3, 82-103.

Rodgers, J. R. (2001), “A Panel-Data Study of the Effect of Student Attendance on University Performance,” Australian Journal of Education 45: 284-95.

Rodgers, J. R. (2002), “Encouraging Tutorial Attendance at University Did Not Improve Performance,” Australian Economic Papers 41: 255-66.

Romer, D. (1993), “Do Students Go to Class?” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 7: 167-74.

Self, S. (2012) “Studying Absenteeism in Principles of Macroeconomics: Do Attendance Policies Make a Difference?” The Journal of Economic Education, 43(3): 223-234

Shenker, C. and K. Eyal (2013) "Encouraging Tutorial Attendance and its Impact on Grades: A Randomised Controlled Trial" Working Papers 332, Economic Research Southern Africa.