Should college faculty collect information on class attendance? As students face several challenges in attending class, such as feelings of anonymity and facelessness in large first-year courses, or logistical issues like unreliable transportation or conflicts due to work, tracking class attendance may seem punitive rather than helpful. In addition, during a busy semester, tracking attendance may feel time consuming and cumbersome.
Luckily, the literature is clear on the relationship between class attendance and performance: attending class provides students with one of the easiest ways to influence their successful completion of a course and degree. And through Student Success & Engagement’s attendance tracking feature, faculty can capture student attendance more easily than ever. Below, we discuss how we know that class attendance improves student academic outcomes, and how easy it is to track attendance in Student Success & Engagement, providing faculty a clear way to encourage student success.propPro
Numerous academic peer-reviewed research articles across many disciplines and institution types suggest that attendance does increase learning and course outcomes for students. In a metaanalysis of 52 published articles and 16 unpublished works regarding the relationship between class attendance and grades in college, Credé and his colleagues at the State University of New York at Albany show that class attendance has a strong relationship not only with individual class grades, but also overall GPA. They conclude that class attendance is “a better predictor of college grades than any other known predictor of academic performance, including scores on standardized admissions tests such as the SAT, high school GPA, study habits, and study skills” (p. 272). This benefit is statistically and substantively significant too: other authors have seen a 2-4% boost to test scores when students attend lectures.
Intuitively, the relationship between class attendance and class performance might make sense. When students attend class they are presented with crucial information not covered in the textbook, and are presented with information from the textbook in a variety of engaging ways. But determining with research whether this relationship exists across the wide diversity of colleges and universities in the United States and the world and the wide diversity of college majors, courses, and teaching styles is tricky.
They conclude that class attendance is “a better predictor of college grades than any other known predictor of academic performance, including scores on standardized admissions tests such as the SAT, high school GPA, study habits, and study skills”
Unsurprisingly, it can be difficult to truly capture whether a student’s attendance in class improves learning and class performance, or whether such a relationship is more a reflection of a motivated student’s desire to learn. Characteristics of students that predict class attendance – internal motivation, cognitive ability, amount of effort – also predict class performance. Therefore, research in this area may be subject to omitted variable bias.
Researchers have attempted to correct for this bias in several smart and creative ways. For instance, Chen and Lin approached the question of class attendance through a randomized experiment. The authors estimated the impact of attending class for those who go to class through selectively lecturing on course material. Across two sections of the same class, a faculty member covered some material in Class A but not Class B and vice versa to see if exposure to material in class could be traced to performance on questions on the exams regarding that material. While all material on the exams were included in the textbook and lecture slides for each section (posted to the class website after class), each class received slightly different lectures. The authors then tracked how students did on exam questions covered and not covered in their sections.
The authors conclude that there was no difference in exam performance on questions covered in both sections. But when focused on questions covered in one section but not the other, “the effect of attending lectures corresponds to a 9.4 percent to 18.0 percent improvement in exam performance for those who choose to attend classes” (p.225). By controlling the material in this way, the authors could avoid the endogeneity issues that plague other research with variables such as motivation and effort.
Similarly, Daniel Marburger tracked which days students missed a class and the days certain exam questions were covered in class. He too found that those who were absent on certain days were much more likely to answer exam questions covered those days incorrectly. Missing class reduced the overall class average score by 2.3 percent.
Unsurprisingly, it can be difficult to truly capture whether a student’s attendance in class improves learning and class performance, or whether such a relationship is more a reflection of a motivated student’s desire to learn.
J.R. Rodgers compared OLS, fixed-effects (FEM), and random-effects models (REM) to determine if absence in an introductory statistics course had a negative effect on class performance. Finding that OLS estimates were biased upwards because of omitted variable bias, Rodgers determined that, using the FEM model, class attendance does positively predict performance, but that this effect is greater for those not chronically absent, upwards of a letter grade for some. Consequently, this and other research led Credé and colleagues to conclude that class attendance and student characteristics such as motivation and effort each separately influence academic performance.
The data from Student Success & Engagement confirms the conclusions in the research. For instance, at one institution, students missing at least one course meeting are 9-12% less likely to pass the course than students who attend all class meetings. This difference is both statistically and substantively significant. Class absences also negatively impact college persistence and graduation: students missing more than two class meetings within any course are between 5-6% more likely to drop out than other students.
Understandably, the effects of attendance may not be uniform across different student groups. For instance, one article finds that groups such as males, Black, and Hispanic students, as well as those with a lower GPAs, benefit most from attending class. The author also finds that those students who benefit the most from attendance in class are the ones who attend the least. Even across the grade distribution in a problem-based learning environment, attendance positively impacts credit completion. More research is needed in this area, though, as group level differences in returns to attendance have received less attention in the research.
Some faculty do not want to have a mandatory attendance policy in class, which is understandable. Regardless of the logistics of tracking attendance, leaving it up to students to decide whether they attend your class could encourage them to be more active when they do come, or at the very least exercise autonomy and take responsibility for their own education. Karen St. Clair argues attendance shouldn’t be mandatory, suggesting students could lose a sense of control over their education.
The research regarding whether mandatory attendance policies increase student performance is not as clear cut as the class attendance literature. Some research suggests that, when applied to students doing poorly in a class at midterm, mandating class attendance can improve final exam performance. Credé and colleagues’ reanalysis of Kooker suggests that the policy may particularly help low-performing students as well. On the other hand, Bratti and Staffolani in their study of a Italian university found that when class attendance is mandatory, students might reduce their self-study time in response. They posit that this could have a negative effect if students reduce their effort outside of class. However, this article assumes self-study and lecture attendance are equally good at increasing exam performance, which could be an untenable assumption (especially considering the results of Chen & Lin and Marburger), and is based on retrospective student self-report of attendance and time spent studying, which could be biased upwards and thus underestimate the effect of both.
Lastly, while Marburger finds that a mandatory attendance policy reduced class absences and improved student performance on the exam, he concluded that it wasn’t the policy itself that improved the material, as students who missed the material in both the policy and no policy conditions missed exam questions at the same rate. It was that the policy induced attendance, which increased performance. If faculty could induce attendance without a mandatory policy, they likely will achieve the same results.
However, Marburger finds that a mandatory attendance policy reduced class absences. Since students missed class less, they were exposed to the material more and thus saw improved performance on the exam. Since the policy induced attendance, it increased performance. However, if faculty can increase class attendance without a mandatory policy, Marburger concludes they could likely achieve the same results.
Research is clear that students who are absent less from class perform better on exams and have higher overall GPAs, even when controlling for student motivation and effort. However, it is unclear from the research at this point regarding what it is about attendance that improves student course outcomes. Faculty could be using the time in class to cover concepts that are unclear in the readings, or may be signaling the importance of a topic for exams in discussing the topic. Regardless of the mechanism, it is clear that class attendance is important for student success, and tracking class attendance can help address issues that prevent student success before the semester is even over.
As members of a community of higher education professionals, tracking attendance is not only important for your class outcomes but also for overall student success. If a student is missing your class, they may also be missing others as well. Student Success & Engagement takes information about students – including course attendance and grades – and uses this information to predict students who are at risk for not completing a course or dropping out altogether. The more faculty collecting this information and including it in Student Success & Engagement, the greater chance an academic advisor can see a red flag for a student and intervene before the absences become problematic. Using Student Success & Engagement, faculty can both encourage students to attend class and collect information on attendance to help predict overall student performance and increase student course and college completion.
Research is clear that students who are absent less from class perform better on exams and have higher overall GPAs, even when controlling for student motivation and effort.
Solutions From Student Success & Engagement
Student Success & Engagement Enterprise connects to an institution’s SIS system to capture attendance data. Attendance information within Student Success & Engagement allows for staff to have the necessary transparency to help inform the potential intervention opportunities. Attendance information can trigger automated early alerts within Student Success & Engagement allowing staff to perform proactive outreach and provide the necessary support to students.
We also provide a tool for institutions to track attendance. Student Success & Engagement’s attendance tracking feature makes it easy to capture student attendance, and more importantly, connect that information to learner analytics that recognize students at risk of failing a class.
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