IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0187078.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Class attendance, peer similarity, and academic performance in a large field study

Author

Listed:
  • Valentin Kassarnig
  • Andreas Bjerre-Nielsen
  • Enys Mones
  • Sune Lehmann
  • David Dreyer Lassen

Abstract

Identifying the factors that determine academic performance is an essential part of educational research. Existing research indicates that class attendance is a useful predictor of subsequent course achievements. The majority of the literature is, however, based on surveys and self-reports, methods which have well-known systematic biases that lead to limitations on conclusions and generalizability as well as being costly to implement. Here we propose a novel method for measuring class attendance that overcomes these limitations by using location and bluetooth data collected from smartphone sensors. Based on measured attendance data of nearly 1,000 undergraduate students, we demonstrate that early and consistent class attendance strongly correlates with academic performance. In addition, our novel dataset allows us to determine that attendance among social peers was substantially correlated (>0.5), suggesting either an important peer effect or homophily with respect to attendance.

Suggested Citation

  • Valentin Kassarnig & Andreas Bjerre-Nielsen & Enys Mones & Sune Lehmann & David Dreyer Lassen, 2017. "Class attendance, peer similarity, and academic performance in a large field study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(11), pages 1-15, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0187078
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0187078
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0187078
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0187078&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0187078?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luca Stanca, 2006. "The Effects of Attendance on Academic Performance: Panel Data Evidence for Introductory Microeconomics," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 251-266, July.
    2. Tsui-Fang Lin & Jennjou Chen, 2006. "Cumulative class attendance and exam performance," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(14), pages 937-942.
    3. Wise, David A, 1975. "Academic Achievement and Job Performance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 350-366, June.
    4. Hesselius, Patrik & Johansson, Per & Nilsson, Peter, 2009. "Sick of your colleagues' absence?," Working Paper Series 2009:2, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    5. Stephen Devadoss & John Foltz, 1996. "Evaluation of Factors Influencing Student Class Attendance and Performance," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 78(3), pages 499-507.
    6. De Paola, Maria, 2010. "Absenteeism and peer interaction effects: Evidence from an Italian Public Institute," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 420-428, June.
    7. Daniel R. Marburger, 2006. "Does Mandatory Attendance Improve Student Performance?," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 148-155, April.
    8. Gregory A. Krohn & Catherine M. O'Connor, 2005. "Student Effort and Performance over the Semester," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 3-28, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dey, Ishita, 2018. "Class attendance and academic performance: A subgroup analysis," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 29-40.
    2. Arulampalam, Wiji & Naylor, Robin A. & Smith, Jeremy, 2012. "Am I missing something? The effects of absence from class on student performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 363-375.
    3. Stefan Buechele, 2020. "Evaluating the link between attendance and performance in higher education - the role of classroom engagement dimensions," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202010, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    4. Dobkin, Carlos & Gil, Ricard & Marion, Justin, 2010. "Skipping class in college and exam performance: Evidence from a regression discontinuity classroom experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 566-575, August.
    5. Tin-chun Lin, 2010. "Does a student's preference for a teacher's instructional style matter? An analysis of an economic approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 30(2), pages 1320-1332.
    6. Vincenzo Andrietti & Carlos Velasco, 2015. "Lecture Attendance, Study Time, and Academic Performance: A Panel Data Study," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(3), pages 239-259, July.
    7. Hadsell, Lester, 2020. "Not for want of trying: Effort and Success of women in principles of microeconomics," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    8. Leonard C. Smith, 2009. "An Analysis Of The Impact Of Pedagogic Interventions In First‐Year Academic Development And Mainstream Courses In Microeconomics," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 77(1), pages 162-178, March.
    9. Mehmet F. Dicle & John Levendis, 2013. "Using RFID Technology to Track Attendance," Journal for Economic Educators, Middle Tennessee State University, Business and Economic Research Center, vol. 13(1), pages 29-38, Fall.
    10. Sacha Kapoor & Matthijs Oosterveen & Dinand Webbink, 2021. "The price of forced attendance," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 209-227, March.
    11. Stewart, Chris, 2020. "An exploratory threshold regression model of the relationship between student performance and attendance," Economics Discussion Papers 2020-1, School of Economics, Kingston University London.
    12. Spencer, Nekeisha & Polachek, Solomon & Strobl, Eric, 2016. "How Do Hurricanes Impact Achievement in School? A Caribbean Perspective," IZA Discussion Papers 10169, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Siobhan Lucey & Maria Grydaki, 2023. "University attendance and academic performance: Encouraging student engagement," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 70(2), pages 180-199, May.
    14. Do Won Kwak & Carl Sherwood & Kam Ki Tang, 2019. "Class attendance and learning outcome," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 177-203, July.
    15. Hans Bonesrønning & Leiv Opstad, 2012. "How Much is Students' College Performance Affected by Quantity of Study?," International Review of Economic Education, Economics Network, University of Bristol, vol. 11(2), pages 46-63.
    16. Göke, Michael, 2008. "Homo oeconomicus im Hörsaal: Die Rationalität studentischer Nebengespräche in Lehrveranstaltungen," Arbeitspapiere der FOM 9, FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie & Management.
    17. Austin, Wesley A. & Totaro, Michael W., 2011. "Gender differences in the effects of Internet usage on high school absenteeism," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 192-198, April.
    18. Aucejo, Esteban M. & Romano, Teresa Foy, 2016. "Assessing the effect of school days and absences on test score performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 70-87.
    19. Büchele, Stefan, 2020. "Should we trust math preparatory courses? An empirical analysis on the impact of students’ participation and attendance on short- and medium-term effects," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 154-167.
    20. Christopher N. Annala & Shuo Chen & Daniel R. Strang, . "The Use of PRS in Introductory Microeconomics: Some Evidence on Performance and Attendance," Journal for Economic Educators, Middle Tennessee State University, Business and Economic Research Center.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0187078. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.