Class attendance and learning outcome

Do Won Kwak (), Carl Sherwood and Kam Ki Tang
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Carl Sherwood: University of Queensland

Empirical Economics, 2019, vol. 57, issue 1, No 7, 177-203

Abstract: Abstract This paper presents new evidence on the dynamic treatment effects of class attendance on academic performance. The analysis is based on a dataset from a large introductory statistics course and a dynamic modeling framework of Ding and Lehrer (Rev Econ Stat 92(1):31–42, 2010). The course had seven progressive assessments spread across a thirteen-week semester. Assessment test scores were matched to individual student attendance records. We use a panel dataset to study the dynamic interactions over time and between learning activities including lectures and tutorials, while accounting for reverse causality and self-selection without resorting to instruments for attendance or discontinuity design. Class attendance is found to have a test score return rate of 1.3 percentage points per lecture and 1 percentage point per tutorial. For both lecture and tutorial attendances, the contemporaneous effect dominates the lagged effect, with the effects accumulating over time. We also find a substitution rather than complementarity effect between lecture attendance and tutorial attendance, but the former has a stronger effect on test scores than the latter. Our results also show these effects are stronger for under-performing students.

Keywords: Student performance; Class attendance; Panel data; Reverse causality; Self-selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 I20 I23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s00181-018-1434-7

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