Correlation between Absences and Final Grades in a College Course

Is the final grade of a student affected by the percentage of missed class sessions? The longitudinal study discussed here addresses this question by comparing the attendance record with the earned final grade of each student in a class taught by the author. The pedagogical and emotional weight carried by the topic of class attendance makes this study relevant to many instructors. If this study showed that final grades were not related to attendance, it would help the view of instructors who oppose requiring attendance as a matter of principle: it would mean that, at least for the case studied here, students attending class did not perform differently from their peers staying home. However, the opposite scenario of this study – showing an association between attendance and final grades – could not be construed as redeeming those instructors requiring attendance, since statistical correlation does not imply a relation of causality between the analyzed variables.

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