A formal research study on correlating student attendance to student success

Abstract

A few years ago members of our Engineering & Design Department began a study to determine the effects of class attendance on student success. Today's engineering technology students have grown up in a very different environment from the students of 20 years ago. They access information and engage in social contact through digital media and they often have almost instant access to this digital media through portable, wireless devices. There is a thought that with this greater connectivity they may not respond in the same manner to the teaching methods of past generations of students. More specifically, the students of today may not feel the same need to be physically present in their classes in order to be successful. This paper discusses the first results of a study that allows the members of the Engineering & Design Department to determine if there is a significant relationship between student success and student attendance. Questions posed by this study include whether attendance has a correlation with student success and, if so, does this correlation change during the progression of a student throughout their undergraduate experience. The study will involve students in programs of Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Technology, Computer Engineering Technology, Manufacturing Technology, Construction Management, and a service course to the general student body. Data comes from four different instructors teaching approximately 20 classes per year ranging from freshman to senior students. We continue to add to the project database creating a tool that we will utilize to study many different aspects of attendance and student success. This paper presents the results of a first assessment of the data, which show a strong correlation between attendance and success across freshman, sophomore, and junior levels. Some earlier studies suggest that student attendance for freshmen was better than that for juniors. This paper appears to contradict this idea in that at least for the classes used in this study student attendance improved measurably as they progressed from freshman to sophomore to junior standing. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.