ABSENTEEISM: ITS EFFECT ON THE ACADEMIC PEREFORMANCE OF

SELECTED SHS STUDENTS

Literature Review

Introduction

It is commonly assumed that university students benet from attending

lectures. This assumption, however, needs to be tested, as developments in

information technology are increasingly calling for a reassessment of the traditional

approach to university education, largely based on physical at-attendance of

lectures and classes, and a number of alternative weightless educational models,

based on distance learning, are being introduced. Nevertheless, as pointed out by

Romer (1993), until recently there was relatively little evidence about attendance

and its eects on student learning.1In the past decade, a number of studies have

examined the relationship between students attendance (or absenteeism) and

academic performance, generally nding that attendance does matter for academic

achievement (seee.g. Durden and Ellis (1995), Devadoss and Foltz (1996), Chan et

al. (1997), Mar burger (2001) Rodgers (2001), Bratti and Staolani (2002), Dolton

etal.(2003), Kirby and McElroy (2003)). This kind of evidence has led some authors

to call for measures to increase student attendance and even to con-sider the

possibility of making attendance mandatory in some undergraduatecourses.2The

main problem in assessing the eects of attendance on academic performance is

that attendance levels are not exogenous, given that students choose whether to

attend lectures and classes, and that this choice is aected by unobservable

individual characteristics, such as ability, eort and motivation, that are also likely

to determine performance: better students, who are more able, work harder or are
more motivated, tend to have higher attendance levels, other things being equal.

This implies that estimates of the impact of attendance on academic performance

are likely to be subject to omitted variable bias. Most existing studies either brush

aside this problem or attempt to dis-entangle the impact of attendance on

performance from unobservable ability and motivational factors by including in the

set of repressors proxies of capability (students grade-point-averages, scores on

college entry exams, etc.),eort (homework-assignment completion) and motivation

(students self re-ported interest in the course). However, such indicators are

generally an imperfect measure of ability and motivation. As a consequence, OLS

estimates of the returns to attendance obtained from specications that include

appropriate control variables are still likely to be biased and inconsistent, to the

extent that they incorrectly attribute to attendance the eects of the component of

ability and motivation not captured by the control. Attendance and Performance

In a widely cited study, Romer (1993) reported evidence on absenteeism in

undergraduate economics courses at three major US universities, nding an

average attendance rate of about 67 per cent. The paper also presented regression

results, based on a sample of 195 Intermediate Macroeconomics students,

indicating a positive and signicant relationship between student attendance and

exam performance. This result was found to be qualitatively robust to the inclusion

among the explanatory variables of students grade point average and the fraction

of problem sets completed.3On the basis of these ndings, Romer suggested that

measures aimed at increasing attendance, including making attendance mandatory,

could be considered.4Prior to Romer, Schmidt (1983) had investigated student time

all location in a sample of 216 macroeconomic principles students, nding that time

spent in lectures and discussion sections has a positive and signicant eect on
exam performance, even after controlling for hours of study. Park and Kerr (1990)

had found an inverse relationship between students attendance and their course

grades in a money and banking course over a four-year period, even after

controlling for the eect of unobservable motivation by means of students self-

reported hours of study and their perceived value of the course.5Following the

controversial conclusions of Romer (1993), in the past decade a number of empirical

studies in the economic education literature3In order to control for the eects of

motivation, Romer also examined the results obtained by restricting his sample to

students who had completed all the problem sets assigned during the semester.4I

believe that the results here both about the extent of absenteeism and its relation

to performance are suggestive enough to warrant experimenting with making class

attendance mandatory in some undergraduate lecture courses. (Romer, 1993, p.

173).5See McConnell and Lamphear (1969), Paden and Moyer (1969), Buckles and

McMahon(1971), Browne, et al. (1991) for early studies nding no signicant impact

of attendance on academic performance. See also Siegfried and Fels (1979) for a

comprehensive survey on research on teaching college economics.have examined

the relationship between student attendance and academic performance. Durden

and Ellis (1995) investigate the link between overall course grade and self-reported

attendance levels in a sample of 346 principles of economics students over three

semesters. Their results, based on OLS controlling for ability and motivational

factors (GPA, college-entrance exam scores, having had a course in calculus)

indicate that attendance matters for academic performance. In particular, whereas

low levels of absenteeism have little eect on the eventual outcome, excessive

absenteeism has a large and signicant eect. Devadoss and Foltz (1996) examine

attendance in a sample of about 400agricultural economics students at four large

U.S. universities. They nd that, even after controlling for both prior grade point

average and the degree of motivation, on average students who attended all

classes achieved a full better grade higher than students who attended no more

than 50 per cent of the same classes. A positive and signicant relationship

between attendance and academic performance is also found by Chan et al. (1997)

in a sample of 71 Principles of Finance students. More recently, Marburger (2001)

investigates the relationship between absenteeism and exam performance in a

sample of 60 students of a principles of microeconomics course. In this study,

information on student attendance at each class during the semester is matched

with records of the class meeting when the material corresponding to each question

was covered. The results indicate that students who miss class on a given date are

signicantly more likely to respond incorrectly to questions relating to material

covered that day than students who were present. Rodgers (2001) nds that

attendance has a small but statistically signicant eect on performance in a

sample of 167 introductory statistics course. Kirby and McElroy (2003) study the

determinants of levels of attendance at lectures and classes and the relationship

with exam performance in a sample of 368 rst year economics students, nding

that hours worked and travel time are the main determinants of class attendance,

and that the latter, in turn, has a positive and diminishing marginal eects on

grade. Among studies who reach less robust conclusions about the positive eect of

attendance on performance, Bratti and Staolani (2002) argue that estimates of

student performance regressions that omit study hours might be biased, given that

hours of study are a signicant determinant of lecture attendance. Using a sample

of 371 rst-year Economics students they nd that the positive and signicant

eect of lecture attendance on performance.is not robust to the inclusion of the

number of hours of study. Dolton et al.(2003), applying stochastic frontier

techniques to a large sample of Spanish students, nd that both formal study and

self study are signicant determinants of exam scores but that the former may be

up to four times more important than the latter. However, they also nds that self

study time maybe in signicant if ability bias is corrected for. All of these studies,

with the exception of Marburger (2001) and Rodgers(2001), are based on cross-

sectional data sets. As a consequence, as observed by Romer (1993), the possibility

that the estimated relationship between attendance and exam performance reects

the impact of omitted factors rather than a true eect cannot be ruled out. In the

following we thus report results obtained using panel data on Introductory

Microeconomics students to estimate the net eects of attendance on academic

performance

Why Students do not Attend Classes?

Course attendance, especially lecture attendance in universities, has been a

problem in many countries in the world. In a study conducted in three well-known

American universities Romer found that the overall non attendance percentage

reached 33% and that it was higher in courses that were remotely related to math.

(Romer, 1993) In another study done at the University College in Dublin, Purcell

(Purcell, 2007) determined that the second and third year civil engineering student

attendance was at the level of 68 %, while in Finlad Kolari (Kolari, 2008) found that

the attendance of Finnish civil engineering students was only at the level of 40%.

Ditcher & Hunter (Ditcher & Hunter, 2004) concluded that some students, whom

they would call instrumental students, do not value the process, but only the result.

This is not a new phenomena and it is indeed increasing. These students, who focus

on the diploma and not on the added value that higher education brings, are
probably not the best course attendees. Despite the absence of statistics in Albania,

the international trend shows that the number of students who work part-time

during their undergraduate studies has increased (O'Dwayer, 2011). Kirby and

McElroy (Kirby and McElroy, 2003) studied 368 economics students and concluded

that the working hours and the commute distance were among the most important

factors in course attendance. The increasing number of the universities out of

Tirana city center makes the latter an interesting factor for the Albanian context. At

the same time, studies have shown that when the lectures are only a presentation

of the information in the textbook, not attending has little eect on performance.

(Buckles and McMahon, 1971, from Gendron and Pieper, 2005). With the recent

development in the way information is transmitted, students have access to

multiple sources through which they can get the required information oftentimes in

a more suitable way for their preferences and lifestyle. So if we would like to keep

our students in our classrooms and lecture halls, we need to think about the added

value.

Attendance and Performance

A number of research studies suggest a correlation between attendance and

performance in college. The rst attempts to study this relationship have been from

Robert Schmidt (Robert Schmidt, 1983) who concluded that the time spent in class

was the primary factor to eect student performance followed by the time spent in

individual study. The last factor was the time spent in exam preparation. Marburger

(Marburger, 2001) in a study with 60 students in a microeconomics course,

observed the percentage of the correct answers belonging to the material covered
in non attended lectures. He concluded that the students were more likely to give

wrong answers to these types of questions compared to the questions belonging to

the lectures they attended. Studies on this topic have been done in a wide array of

programs from science to social studies with similar conclusions. Callahan

(Callahan, 1990) found a positive correlation between attendance and performance

in a math course; Park & Kerr (Park & Kerr, 1990) in a banking policy course; Van

Blerkom (Van Blerkom, 1992) and Shimo & Catania (Shimo & Catania, 2001) in an

introductory course in psychology. A problem mentioned extensively in these

studies is the problem of the eect of the indirect variables on attendance.

Eliminating the eect of intrinsic motivation, GPA, and college preparedness has

been proven difficult. Although attendance has been seen as an important factor in

performance, GPA and college preparedness before entering university have had a

greater eect on performance (Devadoss and Foltz, 1996). Johnson (Johnson, 2002)

found a strong positive correlation between dedication and performance. On the

other hand in Devadoss and Foltz study it was concluded that if GPA and motivation

is controlled, students who better attended courses had a higher average of two

grades compared to the ones who had a 50 % or lower attendance. Durden and Ellis

(Durden and Ellis, 1995) in their study with 346 economics students showed that

attendance remained important when the other variables mentioned in the

literature such as motivation and preparedness were controlled for. As a result,

although it is true that dedicated, motivated and high GPA students are likely to

attend more and achieve higher results, the correlation between attendance and

performance can be seen as a determining factor for motivation and further better

performance. This study is part of the realm of studies that look into this

relationship. The matter whether the absences are acceptable and which amount is
considered safe has been the subject of other studies which concluded that there is

a threshold and if exceeded, it has meaningful negative eects on student

performance. Durden & Ellis (Durden&Ellis, 1995) showed that a small number of

absences do not really aect performance whereas when it exceeded 4 absences

the performance was aected negatively. Likewise Silvestri (Silvestri, 2003) in a

study with teaching majors found a weak negative correlation between the number

of absences and the course grades when these absences were less than three

whereas for four or more absences the negative correlation was strong. Van Blerkom

(Van Blerkom, 1992) reports that sophomores tend to be more absent than the

freshmen and the seniors. In addition, in his study he concludes that gender is not a

meaningful factor in this correlation. Colby (Colby, 2004) analyzed the eect of

attendance in the performance of 178 freshmen students in an undergraduate

program. The results showed a positive correlation between these variables. He also

contributed two attendance rules: the 70 % and the 80 % rule. The former states

that if a student does not attend at least 70 % of the classes he/she has a

probability of two in three to receive a failing mark and a probability of 4 in 5 to

have low grades. The 80% rule stated that if a student does not attend at least 80

% of the courses, the probability to get failing grades is 50 % , whereas the

probability not to get high grades is 2 in 3.

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