Impact of absenteeism on academic performance under compulsory attendance policies in first to fifth year university students

Abstract

Since the implementation of the European Higher Education Area, universities have been obliged to implement continuous assessment systems that require a high degree of student attendance. Based on data recorded during a full academic year of 694 students at a European university, where attendance is compulsory, a cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted to analyse the extent to which absenteeism affects academic performance in each of the five years of one of the degrees. The research found a decreasing effect of the impact of absences on academic performance by year, with the greatest impact of non-attendance on performance found for first-year undergraduates. In addition, a cluster analysis was carried out to find out whether the compulsory attendance policy affects all students equally. Three different styles of behaviour were found: those who attend regularly, students who manage their number of absences to meet the attendance standards, which are the real targets of the policy, and a third group with a high number of absences who are not affected by the policy. These results identify the groups of students who benefit the most from adequate attendance.