Student attendance in an accounting module – reasons for non-attendance and the effect on academic performance at a Scottish University

Abstract

This paper aims to focus on two aspects of student attendance, an area that has received little attention in the higher education literature, namely the reasons why some students do not attend classes, and the issue of whether attendance improves academic performance. The paper begins by reviewing a number of reasons for non-attendance, including issues relating to financial hardship and term-time employment. The paper questions whether student attendance impacts upon academic performance and reports the results of a study into aspects of attendance on an accounting module at a Scottish university. The paper concludes that, in today's higher education environment, it is to be expected that considerable numbers of students will be absent for a variety of reasons that vary in their worthiness. Students' participation in part-time employment was the most frequently cited reason for non-attendance. Some aspects of the students' academic work may affect attendance, such as the timing of classes and coursework assignments. A clear positive relationship between attendance at classes and subsequent academic performance was evident.

Could Attendance at Medical School be improved? A Prospective Study of Medical Education at The University of Liverpool: Study of Attendance at a UK Medical School

“…5,6,[26][27][28][43][44][45] Low levels of attendance have been reported repeatedly by these international studies however there remains a limited amount of literature focused on how to tackle this problem. 46 Despite the authors' judgments that attendance has declined, UoL's medical school had a median attendance at lectures, tutorials and PBL sessions of over 88%.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] This is worrying due to the strong correlation between absenteeism and poor exam performance that has been demonstrated by a number of studies, across a variety of locations and subjects. 5,7,8,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] A lack of interest in subject matter, an un-favourable learning environment, excessive socialisation between students, perceived quality of teaching and ineffective lecture scheduling are cited as core reasons for absenteeism. [29][30][31][32][33] Furthermore, improved access to online materials is an increasingly common reason for students' non-attendance.…”

Immediate Feedback : A New Mechanism for Real Time Feedback on Classroom Teaching Practice

“…Student responses showed a mean value of 3.8, and as the lowest of this question set, the implications of this are of interest. Firstly, a score of 3.8 is a solid 'agree' range outcome but themotivation to attend is a theme that many educators grapple with [8]. Perhaps the lecture material is not best suited for delivery in the current format or student motivation is being lowered by factors outside of the reference of this study.…”

Does Class Attendance Predict Academic Performance in First Year Psychology Tutorials?

“…Some of the reasons cited in the literature are illness, tiredness, prioritising other academic work, anticipation of low academic gain, lack of interest/motivation, finding the class boring and "personal reasons" (Cohall & Skeete, 2012;Dollinger, Matyja, & Huber, 2008;Moore, Armstrong, & Pearson, 2008;Paisley & Paisley, 2004;Schmulian & Coetzee, 2011;Woodfield, Jessop, & McMillan, 2006). One reason for student absenteeism might be the availability of online material, including the streaming of lectures.…”

“…These findings provide some indication that physically attending psychology classes may be directly associated with better academic performance. 2012; Arulampalam, Naylor, & Smith, 2012;Dobkin, Gil, & Marion, 2010;Paisley & Paisley, 2004); in engineering (Nyamapfene, 2010); in pharmacy (Landin & Perez, 2015) and in health (Cohall & Skete, 2012).…”