Class Absenteeism and Exam Performance of GCBS Students

Abstract

Literature on the importance of class attendance affirms the positive effect of attendance on student achievement. Royal University of Bhutan has therefore, developed attendance policies that mandate all students to attend at least 90% of the classes in each module. Consequence of the law, every semester many students are directly declared fail in the respective module(s) of attendance shortage which do not actually represent the real learning outcome of the students. Therefore, to evaluate the actual impact of attendance in terms of learning outcomes a correlation analysis is performed using Feb.-June 2015 semester data. Results indicate a statistically significant but weak positive correlation between lecture attendance and exam performance ( , suggesting the requirement to improve class deliveries and course designs. Students are also recommended to develop their personality towards class attendance and learning.