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Relationship Between Voluntary Attendance and Academic Performance in First Year Medical Students
Author(s) -
Williamson Macy,
Salzman Joshua,
EpsinaRey Andrea,
Kibble Jonathan,
Kauffman Christine
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2021.35.s1.02746
Subject(s) - attendance , curriculum , medicine , class (philosophy) , academic year , medical education , psychology , family medicine , mathematics education , pedagogy , artificial intelligence , computer science , economics , economic growth
The objective of this study was to assess the effects of voluntary attendance at nonmandatory sessions on academic success in the undergraduate medical school setting before and after COVID‐19 curriculum changes. First year medical students enrolled at UCF College of Medicine gave informed consent to participate in the study in August 2019, prior to the start of their M1 year. Four biomedical sciences courses occurred during the timeframe of the study. Classes 1 and 2, plus the first half of Class 3, were delivered as conventional face‐to‐face classes. In March 2020, all lessons were moved online in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, which included the second half of Class 3 and all of Class 4. For the face‐to‐face encounters, attendance was recorded using the Bluetooth enabled smartphone app, SpotterEDU and the percent of total days attended during each course was correlated with the corresponding multiple‐choice final examination score for each participant. To assess the impact of losing the opportunity to attend during Classes 3 and 4, a group of primarily “attenders” was identified as those students who attended ≥ 50% of the nonmandatory sessions in Class 3, prior to the suspension of regular classes. ANOVA was used to assess whether exam scores differed between Classes 1‐4 for this group. Eighty‐two students participated in the study. The average face‐to‐face attendance rates before COVID19 were as follows; Class 1: 69% days, Class 2: 41% days, Class 3: 28% days attended. A linear regression analysis for final exam score versus percent of days attended demonstrated no significant association between attendance and performance (Class 1: R 2 =0.06, Class 2: R 2 = 0.00, Class 3:R 2 = 0.01; N=82). During the 3 rd course, 22 of the 82 participants attended ≥ 50% of nonmandatory sessions. For 21 completed exam records, no significant difference in performance was observed post‐COVID‐19 (F=3.1, p=0.06). The mean scores for the attender group were as follows; Class 1 89.7% (SD 4.0), Class 2 87.7% (SD 4.8), Class 3 90.8% (SD 5.2), Class 4 90.9% (SD 6.8). The absence of significant correlation between face‐to‐face attendance and examinations scores, and the lack of impact on performance when classes were moved online, argues that classroom attendance is not an important mediator of success on knowledge‐based multiple‐choice examinations.