Attend

A fellow Cliopatriarch, Jonathan T. Reynolds, directs us to his letter to the editor on attendance policies. Strictly speaking, I don't "grade" for attendance, in the conventional sense; students are penalized for excessive absences, but not rewarded for putting in an appearance. (The college's policy allows us to fail students who miss 30% of a given semester's meetings.) I'm aware that that's much stick, little carrot, but attendance policies are there to remind students of our mutual, understood obligations as teacher and student. There's no prize for meeting baseline expectations; nobody pats me on the shoulder, after all, for grading papers every semester. There are always anecdotes, of course, about doughty students who earn an "A" in a course after skipping every lecture, but in my own experience, I'm afraid, there's a pretty strong correlation between low attendance and low grades.

I suppose that you could pose a different objection to attendance policies: students are "adults" and should be allowed to make their own choices. But the adult world is full of attendance policies--see under "timesheets," "contracts," etc. More to the point, attendance policies don't prevent students from asking themselves, "To go to class or not to go to class--that is the question"; such policies simply remind them that choices have consequences.

Comments

[sfguy]

I also see a correlation between grades and attendance, but take the view that as adults their grades is a consequence of their attendance choices. My situation is a bit different from that of Reynolds', though: I am at a private university.

[Bob]

One issue I tend to focus on is the effect a student's absences has on me and the other students in the class. It doesn't help my narcissism when someone seems to think my class doesn't matter that much, and as my narcissism is an important part of my motivation, I don't mind explaining this to a class. It's a factor students don't usually think about, at least consciously, but do appreciate once they get it.

[John Thomas McGuire]

It's also a question of investment. After all, students usually pay for their higher education, whether by direct payment or student loans. If they miss class, they're really hurting their own investment in a higher degree.

[Zh.]

At the University of Washington, the students took the professoriate to court over mandatory attendance and won. The profs at the UW now grade on "participation" because if you're not in class, you can't participate.

[jspencer]

If it's a small seminar or colloquium, that's one thing. If it's a huge lecture class, participation means nothing, and if students complete their assignments, their attendance should not be required. Narcissism shmarcissism -- it's not grade school.

[slacker]

If attendance correlates strongly with performance, isn't penalizing non-attendance both unnecessary and doubling the punishment?