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Abstract
The link between absenteeism and students’ academic performance at university is perpetually a hot topic for teaching academics. Most studies suggest the effect is negative, although the strength of this effect is in dispute. The issue is complicated further when researchers draw their inferences from different angles, such as the removal of a mandatory attendance policy or the implementation of a module‐specific attendance policy. Although previous studies have suggested the effect on exam performance of removing a mandatory attendance policy is weak, this study investigates the effect of implementing a module‐specific attendance policy and finds a strong effect on exam performance. We also identify that student‐specific factors are important, including revision strategies and peer‐group effects and that not taking account of these factors will result in biased estimates of the effect of an attendance policy on exam performance. Furthermore, this paper suggests that the effect of absenteeism on exam performance is non‐linear and further research is needed to identify when attendance policy is a justifiable tool.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Paul Dunne, Peter Howells and Sam Perlo‐Freeman for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Any errors are the authors’ responsibility.
Notes
1. In terms of the attendance policy, Marburger (Citation2006, 154, fn. 2) states that a student who misses more than twice the number of lectures normally scheduled per week would receive an ‘F’ grade and that a student who misses more than six microeconomics classes would receive an ‘F’.
2. The reported results on the link between exam performance and absenteeism are rather surprising: the likelihood of responding incorrectly to a question relating to that class’s topic increases from 9% in exam 1 to 14% in exam 3. Yet, when absenteeism was at its highest for the no‐policy group (in teaching block III and prior to the final exam), this group was only 2% more likely to get a wrong answer compared with those students in the policy group.
3. As it is we can not speculate any further as Marburger does not tell us the distribution or average marks for all nine groups covering Citation2001–2003. Other concerns rest with the exam results; firstly we are given no details about the time or the length of the exams, or the number of multiple choice questions that were set or the number of choices found in each question. Burton (Citation2001) demonstrates that a typical 60‐question 4‐choice test is ‘inherently too unreliable for the demands commonly placed on it’ (47). If it turns out that the exams set during Marburger’s study where of this nature then the degree of guessing could be significant, and would compromise the validity of the final marks for all students.
4. It is our view that the impact of either removing or imposing a policy on attendance is unlikely to be uniform across attendance rates or consistent across cohorts. Each approach will arrive at different conclusions which could then mislead policymakers.
5. It is interesting to note from Marburger’s study that the local students worked less; this is most evident in the policy class. In the no‐policy class there were fewer locals and these individuals worked more hours on average. This may be associated with higher living costs for rent (not living at home with parents) and for travel costs to get back home to see the family.
6. The extent to which the Level 2 mark accurately captures the student’s ability is questionable; the analysis of the changes in exam marks is presented in Table . We would expect there to be some degree of regression to the mean, after all the exam mark captures ability and a degree of luck on the day; we would expect students who received higher grades in Level 2 to get lower grades in Level 3 and for the reverse to have occurred for the less‐able students. Of course, this is based on the proposition that there is an element of luck. If this were not generally the case then one might expect to see some degree of stratification in that relatively more‐/less‐able students remain relatively more‐/less‐able, and this should be borne out in the results. Nevertheless, we are surprised by the amount of average increase in the exam mark for students at the bottom end of the distribution and further research should focus on attempting to identify which types of students gain most from an explicit focus on attendance (either engineered by policy or by curriculum design). It might be possible to identify whether it is the least‐able students who gain the most from a heavy emphasis on attendance, as is hinted at in Table .
7. This prerequisite module is only applicable if the student followed a specific course. It was not taken by seven students as they came to the module through a different (non‐standard) route, which means that this data attrition reduces the sample to 38 in these descriptive statistics and in the econometrics which follow.
8. This possibility is further supported by the fact that the degree awarded to the student is based on 70% of the Level 3 marks and 30% on their Level 2 marks.