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Evaluation of Factors Influencing Student Class Attendance and Performance
Abstract
This study quantifies the effects of student behavior, teacher attributes, and course characteristics on class attendance
and performance. Several notable factors that influence attendance and grades are motivation, prior grade point average (GPA),
self-financing by students, hours worked on jobs, quality of teaching, and nature of class lectures. This study provides strong
empirical evidence of the positive influence of class attendance on student performance.
... When reasons for absentees are examined, one might mention that it depends on course days or even course hours while others may claim opposite (Gump, 2005). Even, there is an argument on classroom size as one of the factors affecting the attendance (Devadoss & Foltz, 1996). In addition to those arguments on classroom sizes, few researchers state that students attend assistants' lectures more often than professors' (Friedman, Rodriguez & McComb, 2001). ...
... It also harms dynamic learning environment. It is noteworthy to point out that instructors who are seen successful in teaching, attract more students to classrooms (Devadoss & Foltz, 1996). Consequently, students' aptitude towards courses might also be included as one of the factors affecting the attendance. ...
... Consequently, students' aptitude towards courses might also be included as one of the factors affecting the attendance. Academic performance has a positive relationship with classroom attendance and, classroom attendance is affected by motivation (Devadoss & Foltz, 1996). ...
Classroom Attendance Scale (CAS) was prepared with 14 items. Prepared CAS consisted of items with likert type. Sample of the study for the exploratory factor analysis consisted of 318 college students who were studying at education faculty at science education and primary education programs along with students studying at engineering faculty. Principal axis factoring with orthogonal rotation (varimax) was used for exploratory factor analysis. Factor eigenvalues were obtained and corrected-item total correlations analyzed. Items which did not serve the purpose of scale were omitted from CAS. Thus, analyses with same procedure were reconducted several times until reaching to a final version of the CAS. Obtained factors were crosschecked with Monte Carlo Parallel Analysis Simulations. A confirmatory factor analysis with Maximum Likelihood was applied to a different sample (N=229) and CAS is approved by most common fit indices values. Total sample of the study consists of 547 participants. Finalized CAS consisted of 8 items and scale's Cronbach's alpha value was .923.
Öz Derse Devam Ölçeği (DDÖ) 14 maddeden oluşturulmuştur. DDÖ için oluşturulan maddeler likert tipli maddelerdir. Araştırmanın açımlayıcı faktör analizi için örneklemini eğitim fakültesi fen bilgisi öğretmenliği ve sınıf öğretmenliği bölümlerinde ve mühendislik fakültesinde öğrenim görmekte olan toplamda 318 üniversite öğrencisi oluşturmaktadır. Açımlayıcı faktör analizi için principal axis factoring, orthogonal döndürme (varimax) ile birlikte kullanılmıştır. Faktör özdeğerleri ve düzeltilmiş-madde ölçek korelasyonları incelenmiştir. Ölçeğin amacına hizmet etmeyen maddeler DDÖ'den çıkarılmıştır. Bu nedenle DDÖ'nün nihai hali oluşuncaya dek aynı analizler tekrarlanmıştır. Elde edilen faktörler Monte Carlo Paralel Analiz Simülasyonları kullanılarak kontrol edilmiştir. Farklı bir örneklem ile (N=229) Maximum Benzerlik kulllanılarak doğrulayıcı faktör analizi yapılmış ve DDÖ bir çok yaygın fit indis değerlerince onaylanmıştır. Çalışmanın toplam örneklemini 547 kişi oluşturmaktadır. Nihai DDÖ 8 maddeden oluşmakta ve .923 Cronbach's alpha iç güvenirlik değerine sahiptir.
... Some authors, such as Clair (1999), argue that enforcing attendance would reduce students' feelings of control over their environment; nevertheless, Clair acknowledges that in some cases it is appropriate to institute an attendance policy, as in courses that require students to complete assignments and demonstrate knowledge in the classroom. By contrast, proponents of mandatory policies argue that implementation of these policies reduces absenteeism and improves performance due to the positive correlation between attendance and performance (Devadoss & Foltz, 1996;Snyder et al., 2014). Sund & Bignoux (2018) recommend attendance policies designed according to student characteristics in teaching-intensive universities, instead of the one-size-fits-all approach taken by most universities today. ...
... Hancock (1994) found that students whose final grades were affected by mandatory attendance averaged higher scores. Devadoss & Foltz (1996) found that required class attendance strongly influences students' behaviour and they found strong empirical evidence of the positive influence of class attendance on student performance. Recently, Ta et al. (2020) showed that for each class session missed, there was a reduction in the overall course grade of 0.18% and 0.14% in the autumn and spring courses in pharmacy students. ...
... Students in junior-level courses had a 5% higher attendance rate than those in sophomore-and senior-level courses, but students in senior-level courses achieved better grades than their junior and sophomore counterparts (Devadoss & Foltz, 1996). In the same vein, Wongtrakul & Dangprapai (2020) found that the lecture attendance rate among second-year students was significantly higher than that among the third-year students. ...
Since the implementation of the European Higher Education Area, universities have been obliged to implement continuous assessment systems that require a high degree of attendance by students. Using recorded data, from year 1 to year 5, of 694 students of a European university, where attendance is mandatory, the main objective of this research is to analyse to what extent absenteeism affects performance across the years of degree study. The investigation found a decreasing effect. In addition, a cluster analysis was done to find out if the compulsory attendance policy impacts all students equally. Three different behavioural styles were found: those who attend regularly, students who manage their number of absences to comply with attendance rules, who are the real targets the policy, and a third group with a high number of absences not affected by the policy. These findings identify the groups of students who benefit most from adequate attendance.
... They missed fewer classes than their male counterparts. Even though class attendance was not included as a variable in this study, there is a wide body of literature that indicates negative correlation between absenteeism and student performance 3,4,5,15 . This particular factor effect might have an effect on enhanced quiz performance by the females in tests. ...
... Según estudios previos [1,2,3], existe una relación entre la asistencia a clase y el desempeño de los estudiantes en el entorno académico. Taufit y otros [4], discutieron varias alternativas para registrar la asistencia de los estudiantes durante el aprendizaje a distancia, junto con el fenómeno de programar la asistencia a clases. ...
Durante la actual pandemia de COVID-19, muchos docentes han tenido que cambiar los métodos para llevar a cabo sus actividades docentes. Una tarea común del maestro es el registro de la asistencia, para planear acciones que mejoren el desempeño de los estudiantes. En este documento, se reporta sobre una aplicación de escritorio que brinda soporte para el cálculo de estadísticas de asistencia de clase. Se propone que la asistencia de clase sea tomada de manera aleatoria a lo largo de las sesiones, por lo que debe ser posible almacenar varios registros de asistencia de clase por sesión. La aplicación toma como entrada la información de la clase proporcionada por el instructor, como la lista de estudiantes, horarios de clases y calificaciones finales o parciales del estudiante, y genera gráficos e informes que son de utilidad. Específicamente, las gráficas muestran el registro de clase de sesión por grupo, asistencia de clase por parte de un estudiante, asistencia a clase por grupo y cuando las calificaciones están disponibles, es posible generar gráficas de dispersión del porcentaje de asistencia de clase en contra de calificación. Para cada estudiante, el sistema propuesto genera un informe personalizado de asistencia a clase para todas las sesiones a lo largo del semestre. La aplicación propuesta fue probada a lo largo de un semestre, procesando los registros de asistencia de clase de dos grupos de la misma clase, impartidos por el mismo profesor. Se generan gráficos e informes de estadísticas de asistencia a clases para los grupos descritos anteriormente. Palabras Clave: Aplicación de Escritorio; Asistente en Labores Docentes; Automatización de Procesos Docentes.
... There are several factors that can influence class attendance in universities, especially student motivations, quality of teaching, and characteristics of class lectures [178]. However it is infeasible to measure students motivation without conducting extensive surveys of a large population of students. ...
University campuses are essentially a microcosm of a city. They comprise diverse facilities such as residences, sport centres, lecture theatres, parking spaces, and public transport stops. Universities are under constant pressure to improve efficiencies while offering a better experience to various stakeholders including students, staff, and visitors. Nonetheless, anecdotal evidence indicates that campus assets are not being utilised efficiently, often due to the lack of data collection and analysis, thereby limiting the ability to make informed decisions on the allocation and management of resources. Advances in the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies that can sense and communicate data from the physical world, coupled with data analytics and Artificial intelligence (AI) that can predict usage patterns, have opened up new opportunities for organisations to lower cost and improve user experience. This thesis explores this opportunity via theory and experimentation using UNSW Sydney as a living laboratory.
... While university instructors value student attendance in principle (see Sperber, 2005, for exceptions), they are nevertheless divided on the subject of whether or not attendance should be taken. Research investigating possible correlations between attendance and other factors such as students' understanding of course content, information retention, motivation, and overall academic achievement have produced mixed results (Credé, Roch, & Kieszczynka, 2010;Devadoss & Foltz, 1996, as cited in Rocca, 2004Marburger, 2006). ...
... Regarding the latest, many factors affect undergrad students' academic performances, with these factors depending on the learning disciplines and environment, and in general, differing from place to place and time to time (Thayamathy, Elango, and Karunarathna 2018). Regarding this, students' effort and previous schooling have been found significantly related to academic performances (Anderson, Benjamin, and Fuss 1994), together with unfavorable learning environment (Osaikhiuwu 2014), class attendance (Devadoss and Foltz 1996;Park and Kerr 1990), socio-economic and wealth (Robst and Keil 2000), parent's support (Okolie et al. 2014), parent's educational level (Akessa and Dhufera 2015), self-efficacy beliefs (Diseth 2011;Komarraju and Nadler 2013;Liem, Lau, and Nie 2008;Magogwe and Oliver 2007;Truong and Wang 2019;Wang and Bai 2017;Zimmerman and Kitsantas 2005) culture and religion (Wang and Sun 2020), and stream of study and proficiency in mother language and English language (Thayamathy et al. 2018). In accordance with this, English proficiency is thus playing an important role in a student's academic performance. ...
The importance of English proficiency in the educational setting has been highlighted in many research works, and mostly in developing countries, like Cambodia. Measuring the extent of the impact that English proficiency may have on academic performance is something not only hard but extremely dependable on the ecosystem we consider, level of education, culture, economy, and other factors that may influence the results. For this reason, it is important to focus on a specific educational ecosystem to provide useful ad hoc insights that can be used by the learning designers and educational institutions. This research work aims to investigate the impact that English performance has for university students enrolled in any undergraduate degree program in a private higher education institution in Cambodia, analyzing the correlation between average student's grade in English-related courses and their final GPA upon graduation. With this investigation, these authors want to measure the relationship between a pupil's English proficiency and their possibility to obtain a higher GPA during their studies, accounting for this with the broader concept of academic performance. The considered students have been selected between those who graduated from the selected higher education institution. The Pearson's correlation was thus calculated between the average of the scores in the English-related courses and the final cumulative GPA. An analysis of the results showed a strong correlation between English proficiency and final cumulative GPA. The results of this study suggest that higher education institutions should pay careful attention to the English proficiency of their students.
In traditional school-based learning, attendance was regarded as a proxy for engagement and key indicator for performance. However, few studies have explored the effect of in-class attendance in technology-enhanced courses that are increasingly provided by secondary institutions. This study collected n = 367 undergraduate students' log files from Moodle and applied learning analytics methods to measure their lecture attendance, online learning activities, and performance on online formative assessments. A baseline and an alternative structural equation models were used to investigate whether online learning engagement and formative assessment mediated the relationship between lecture attendance and course academic outcomes. Results show that lecture attendance does not have a direct effect on academic outcomes, but it promotes performance by leveraging online learning engagement and formative assessment performance. Findings contribute to understanding the impact of in-class attendance on course academic performance and the interplay of in-class and online-learning engagement factors in the context of technology-enhanced courses. This study recommends using a variety of educational technologies to pave multiple pathways to academic success.
Supplementary information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41239-021-00307-5.
This article attempts to address the problem of multicollinearity in the estimation of educational production functions. Past studies consistently indicate the seeming lack of importance of school input variables such as teacher salary, class size, and expenditure per student in influencing educational outcomes. Our ordinary least squares results were consistent with these past studies, but collinearity diagnostics revealed the presence of at least four potentially serious sources of collinearity within the data, possibly degrading the coefficients on the school input variables. Ridge regression and principal components regression techniques were employed in an effort to “solve” the collinearity problem. The coefficients of the school input variables continue to have the hypothesized signs, but with smaller standard errors. The results indicate that researchers should be cautioned against reaching the conclusion that school input variables don't matter on the basis of ordinary least squares estimates of these parameters.
The article attempts to develop a general theory of the allocation of time in non-work activities. It sets out a basic theoretical analysis of choice that includes the cost of time on the same footing as the cost of market goods and treats various empirical implications of the theory. These include a new approach to changes in hours of work and leisure, the full integration of so-called productive consumption into economic analysis, a new analysis of the effect of income on the quantity and quality of commodities consumed, some suggestions on the measurement of productivity, an economic analysis of queues and a few others as well. The integration of production and consumption is at odds with the tendency for economists to separate them sharply, production occurring in firms and consumption in households. It should be pointed out, however, that in recent years economists increasingly recognize that a household is truly a small factory. It combines capital goods, raw materials and labor to clean, feed, procreate and otherwise produce useful commodities.
“Teaching is a messy, indeterminate, inscrutable, often intimidating, and highly uncertain task.”
Richard Elmore
Effective teaching is a recurring topic of faculty discussion and disagreement. The title of my address suggests that effective teaching has two components. First and increasingly important, teaching has an empirical component. The empiricism of teaching asserts that there are identifiable traits of effective teaching that can be used to improve one's teaching experience. I want to share with you some insights we have gained from recent empirical studies on teaching and the teaching evaluation process. Second, there is the art of teaching or the intangible and creative component of teaching. I will speak on how the art of teaching can be refined. This I will do by way of offering some personal teaching tips that have at least made my teaching experience more enjoyable.
Empirical evidence does not agree with the investment-model of the demand for education: out of pocket costs have another impact than earnings foregone. This difference can be explained by consumption motives. The demand for education is then greater, the full price of education exceeds discounted future incremental earnings, net discounted wealth is not maximum and the rate of return to marginal investments in education is smaller than the interest rate.
Empirisches Material deckt sich nicht mit dem Investitionsmodell der Bildungsnachfrage: die direkten Kosten haben einen anderen Einfluss als der Einkommensausfall. Dieser Unterschied kann aus konsumtiven Gründen erklärt werden. In dem Falle ist die Bildungsnachfrage grösser, die totalen Bildungskosten überteigen das marginale zukünftig diskontierte Einkommen, das totale diskontierte Einkommen ist nicht maximal und der Investitionsfuss bei marginalen Investitionen im Bildungswesen ist niedriger als der Zinsfuss.
Evidence empirique n'est pas conforme au modèle d'investissement de la demande de I'éducation: les frais directs influent sur la demande de I'éducation d'une autre façon que les revenus sacrifiés. Cette difference peut ȩtre expliquée par des motifs de consommation. En ce cas la demande de l'éducation est plus grande, le prix total de l'éducation excède le revenu marginal escompté futur, le revenue total n'est pas maximum et le rendement sur les investissements marginals en éducation est plus bas que le taux d'intérȩt.