Investigating the relationship between students’ attendance and attainment

Posted on 9 December 2020

New published article in the York Scholarship of Teaching and Learning journal

What is the relationship between students’ attendance at classes and their achievement in summative assignments? This is the question that Dr Claire Childs, Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science (LLS), set out to investigate in a recently published article in the 2020 edition (Volume 4) of the York Scholarship of Teaching and Learning journal.

The article was an invited contribution based on a project and assignment originally completed as part of the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, a qualification that new lecturers in the University commonly undertake in their first two years in post.

Many different factors contribute to students’ overall outcomes in their University degrees, but this research set out to investigate whether students’ attendance records on particular modules in LLS correlated with their achievements on those modules. Dr Childs’ research focused on data from three particular modules she convened in 2017-18 or 2018-19: Introduction to Sociolinguistics (1st year undergraduate), Intermediate Language Variation and Change (2nd year undergraduate), and Language Variation and Change (Masters).

The study took a quantitative approach and examined, for each module, whether there was a correlation between the percentage of classes attended and the overall module marks. The statistical analysis revealed a positive correlation between lecture attendance and attainment in summative assignments for Introduction to Sociolinguistics. This reflects the nature of the module, which tests the students’ understanding of key sociolinguistic concepts. The other two modules did not show such correlations. In part, this might be due to their smaller sample sizes (i.e. fewer students) and, in the case of the Masters module, less variation (i.e. all of the students had excellent attendance records overall). Furthermore, the 2nd year module Intermediate Language Variation and Change builds upon the knowledge gained in the 1st year and requires higher-order data analysis, interpretation and argumentation skills. The correlation between lecture attendance and attainment therefore becomes less significant for this module because it requires students to undertake more independent study.

“When the opportunity came to conduct a research project as part of the PGCAP qualification, I was keen to investigate whether attending a higher proportion of timetabled classes correlated with higher marks, as it something that is often assumed but not fully understood. The investigation points to the multitude of factors that are relevant to this question, including level of study and module aims/outcomes.” Dr Claire Childs, Dept. Language and Linguistic Science, University of York

The article is freely available online with a University of York log-in but if you are someone from outside the University who would like a copy, please feel free to contact the author directly: claire.childs@york.ac.uk