THE IMPACT OF STUDENT ATTENDANCE, SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS AND

MOBILITY ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT OF THIR GRADE STUDENTS IN TITLE

I SCHOOLS

By Doris Jean Jones

INTRODUCTION

Educators, parents, and politicians are continuously searching for that

magic solution that will reform our public education system and establish

a flawless system of education for our youth, by providing them with a

quality education (Edwards, 2002). The success of the school in carrying

out its primary charge of educating and socializing students is contingent

on students attending school regularly (Smith, 1998, p.1). Smith (1998),

in his study emphasizes that attendance is a priority for educators. This

study investigates attendance in the primary grades. The goal is to

identify early indicators of poor attendance at the primary level in order to

provide interventions that could have an impact on middle and high school

students attendance. Research conducted in this area could provide

school divisions with vital information about student attendance patterns

at the primary level that could reveal or predict an influence on student

attendance in the middle and high school level. Students must be present

in school in order to benefit from the academic program in its entirety

(DeKalb, 1999; Rothman, 2001). Schools and law enforcement officials are

getting tough by enforcing laws that mandate school attendance and by

holding parents responsible for their students attendance. Student non-

attendance is a problem that extends beyond the school. It affects the

student, their families, and the community (DeKalb, 1999; U. S.

Department of Education, 2001). This study 1 investigates the impact of

student attendance, socio-economic status and mobility on student

achievement of third grade students in two Title I schools with grades PK-

3, as determined by the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) English and

math tests scores.

Historical Perspective

Compulsory education in the United States is mandated by a complex

system of state laws requiring attendance at either public schools or at

some other acceptable learning environment (Pierce v. Society of Sisters,

1925). Compulsory education has its roots in English legislation of the 16th

and 17th centuries (Aikman, W.F., & Kotin, L., 1940). Individual states have

primary authority over public education in the United States. The first

compulsory education law in America was enacted in 1642 in the Colony

of Massachusetts Bay. Since that time every state in the nation has

established a system of free public education and laws governing

attendance (Ensign, 1969). In addition, each state has developed a

department of education and enacted laws regulating finance, the hiring

of school personnel, student attendance and curriculum (Thattai, 2002).

Presently, all fifty states have laws that compel children between

specified ages, usually six to sixteen, to be educated. To accomplish this,

compulsory school attendance laws have been enacted throughout the

nation (Alexander, K. & Alexander, M. D., 1998, p. 15). State law defines

and enforces these requirements. Compulsory attendance laws are

enacted for the protection of children (Alexander, K. & Alexander, M. D.,

1998, p.17). Compulsory attendance embraced the political ideals of

liberty under law that maintains that 2 there can be no real liberty, no

true democracy without education, free, universal, and compulsory for

every citizen (Ensign, 1969). School is perceived as the key to success for

individuals and to the excellence of society (Mitchell, 1993). Due to the

increase of reported student absenteeism, the U.S. Department of

Education, National Center for Education Statistics, conducted a Schools

and Staffing Survey (1990-91). The statistical results from the teacher

questionnaire show that absenteeism and tardiness is a serious problem.

The Virginia General Assembly, in 1999, enacted legislation that amended

the Code of Virginia 22.1-254, related to compulsory school attendance.

The law stipulates that every child who has reached the age of 5 by

September 30th and who has not passed his or her eighteenth birthday

must attend a public school or attend the same number of days and hours

at a private, denominational or parochial school or taught by a tutor or

teacher qualified by the Board of Education and approved by the division

superintendent or provide home instruction under the same requirements.

The legislation also requires each school board to send to the parents or

guardian of each student enrolled in the division a copy of the compulsory

school attendance law and the enforcement procedures and policies

established by the school board (Duke & Canady, 1991). The Educational

Research Service (1996) summarizes research on absenteeism and

provides policies, procedures, and programs that are being used by school

systems to help eliminate excessive absenteeism in schools (U.S.

Department of Education, 1996). Truancy has been labeled as one of the

major problems in this countrys schools, negatively affecting the future of

our youth (DeKalb, 1999). When 3 students miss school, it hinders their

learning (U. S. Department of Education, 2002).

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 effect 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 first 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 effect 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 Shimoff & Catania (Shimoff & Catania, 2001) in an introductory course

in psychology. A problem mentioned extensively in these studies is the

problem of the effect of the indirect variables on attendance. Eliminating

the effect 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 effect 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

effects on student performance. Durden &Ellis (Durden &Ellis, 1995)

showed that a small number of absences do not really affect performance

whereas when it exceeded 4 absences the performance was affected

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 effect 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.

Relevant Theories

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

absenteeism inundergraduate economics courses at three major US

universities, finding anaverage attendance rate of about 67 per cent. The

paper also presentedregression results, based on a sample of 195

Intermediate Macroeconomicsstudents, indicating a positive and

significant relationship between studentattendance and exam

performance. This result was found to be qualita-tively robust to the

inclusion among the explanatory variables of studentsgrade point

average and the fraction of problem sets completed.3On thebasis of these

findings, Romer suggested that measures aimed at increasingattendance,

including making attendance mandatory, could be considered.4Prior to

Romer, Schmidt (1983) had investigated student time allocationin a

sample of 216 macroeconomic principles students, finding that timespent

in lectures and discussion sections has a positive and significant effecton

exam performance, even after controlling for hours of study. Park andKerr

(1990) had found an inverse relationship between students

attendanceand their course grades in a money and banking course over a

four-yearperiod, even after controlling for the effect of unobservable

motivation bymeans of students self-reported hours of study and their

perceived value ofthe course.5Following the controversial conclusions of

Romer (1993), in the pastdecade a number of empirical studies in the

economic education literature3In order to control for the effects of

motivation, Romer also examined the resultsobtained by restricting his

sample to students who had completed all the problem setsassigned

during the semester.4I believe that the results here both about the extent

of absenteeism and its relation toperformance are suggestive enough to

warrant experimenting with making class attendancemandatory in some

ungergraduate 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 finding no

significant impact of attendanceon academic performance. See also

Siegfried and Fels (1979) for a comprehensive surveyon research on

teaching college economics. have examined the relationship between

student attendance and academicperformance. Durden and Ellis (1995)

investigate the link between overallcourse grade and self-reported

attendance levels in a sample of 346 principlesof economics students over

three semesters. Their results, based on OLScontrolling for ability and

motivational factors (GPA, college-entrance examscores, having had a

course in calculus) indicate that attendance matters foracademic

performance. In particular, whereas low levels of absenteeism havelittle

effect on the eventual outcome, excessive absenteeism has a large

andsignificant effect.Devadoss and Foltz (1996) examine attendance in a

sample of about 400agricultural economics students at four large U.S.

universities. They findthat, even after controlling for both prior grade point

average and the degreeof motivation, on average students who attended

all classes achieved a fullletter grade higher than students who attended

no more than 50 per cent ofthe same classes. A positive and significant

relationship between attendanceand academic performance is also found

by Chan et al. (1997) in a sampleof 71 Principles of Finance students.More

recently, Marburger (2001) investigates the relationship

betweenabsenteeism and exam performance in a sample of 60 students of

a principlesof microeconomics course. In this study, information on

student attendanceat each class during the semester is matched with

records of the class meetingwhen the material corresponding to each

question was covered. The resultsindicate that students who miss class on

a given date are significantly morelikely to respond incorrectly to

questions relating to material covered that daythan students who were

present. Rodgers (2001) finds that attendance hasa small but statistically

significant effect on performance in a sample of 167introductory statistics

course. Kirby and McElroy (2003) study the determi-nants of levels of

attendance at lectures and classes and the relationship withexam

performance in a sample of 368 first year economics students, findingthat

hours worked and travel time are the main determinants of class atten-

dance, and that the latter, in turn, has a positive and diminishing

marginaleffect on grade.Among studies who reach less robust conclusions

about the positive ef-fect of attendance on performance, Bratti and

Staffolani (2002) argue thatestimates of student performance regressions

that omit study hours mightbe biased, given that hours of study are a

significant determinant of lectureattendance. Using a sample of 371 first-

year Economics students they findthat the positive and significant effect 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 Spanishstudents, find tha both formal

study and self study are significant determi-nants of exam scores but that

the former may be up to four times moreimportant than the latter.

However, they also find that self study time maybe insignificant 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 observedby Romer (1993), the possibility that the

estimated relationship between at-tendance and exam performance

reflects the impact of omitted factors ratherthan a true effect cannot be

ruled out. In the following we thus report re-sults obtained using panel

data on Introductory Microeconomics students toestimate the net effect of

attendance on academic performance

Conclusion

The success of the school in carrying out its primary charge of educating

and socializing students is contingent on students attending school

regularly. This study investigates attendance in the primary grades. The

goal is to identify early indicators of poor attendance at the primary level

in order to provide interventions that could have an impact on middle and

high school students attendance

References List

https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/27055?show=full

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-04202006-154606/