Attendance and attainment are they linked: a study in the first-year of a bioscience degree

Abstract

There is much evidence in the literature that suggests that student attendance rate is linked with both attainment and retention. Levels of attendance have been shown to be influenced by many factors, such as part-time work and day and time of learning opportunity. The aims of this current study were to investigate the links between a) attendance and attainment b) attendance and day/time of the module in two first-year modules of a bioscience degree. The results confirm the link between attendance and module attainment, but did not find a relationship between attendance and timetabling of the module. Therefore, for any university aiming to increase their overall student attainment the key recommendation would be the introduction of a robust and visible attendance monitoring system.