Open AccessImpact of absenteeism on academic performance under compulsory attendance policies in first to fifth year university students
Author(s) -
Mariano Méndez Suárez,
Natividad CrespoTejero
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
revista complutense de educación
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.466
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1988-2793
pISSN - 1130-2496
DOI - 10.5209/rced.70917
Subject(s) - attendance , absenteeism , compulsory education , psychology , cluster (spacecraft) , medical education , mathematics education , medicine , political science , pedagogy , social psychology , computer science , law , programming language
Since the implementation of the European Higher Education Area, universities have been obliged to implement continuous assessment systems that require a high degree of attendance by students. Using recorded data, from year 1 to year 5, of 694 students of a European university, where attendance is mandatory, the main objective of this research is to analyse to what extent absenteeism affects performance across the years of degree study. The investigation found a decreasing effect. In addition, a cluster analysis was done to find out if the compulsory attendance policy impacts all students equally. Three different behavioural styles were found: those who attend regularly, students who manage their number of absences to comply with attendance rules, who are the real targets the policy, and a third group with a high number of absences not affected by the policy. These findings identify the groups of students who benefit most from adequate attendance.