Relationship Between Time of Class and Student Grades in an Active Learning Course

Background A factor related to students’ course performance that has seen limited research compared to other academic factors is the time of day a class is offered. Because of students’ chronotypes (i.e., preferred time of day to study or work), time of class can influence attendance, which has a strong correlation with students’ performance in a course. Purpose/Hypothesis The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between class time, students’ attendance including individual and average class attendance, and students’ final grades in an active learning course. Design/Method The grade and attendance records of 1,577 first‐year engineering (FYE) students enrolled in 15 sections at different times of the day were analyzed using Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference and Multi‐Level Modeling to identify whether the performance and attendance of students in the early morning sections were significantly different from those in the other sections and to differentiate the individual and class attendance in relation to students’ grades. Results Students enrolled in early morning and late Friday afternoon classes had lower attendance and final grades than students in other sections. Class average attendance had a significant relationship with students’ grades. Thus, in active learning classes, both an individual student's and classmates’ absences have a negative relationship with an individual student's grade. Conclusion FYE students are more likely to miss early morning classes. In a course based on active learning, this lower attendance has a negative relationship with student performance for all students in the class, including the ones who attend the class regularly, suggesting active learning may amplify the negative effects of missing classes.