The impact of class absenteeism on student’s academic performance using regression

models
Nurhafizah Ahmad, Ahmad Zia Ul-Saufie, Siti Asmah Mohamed, Hasfazilah Ahmat, and Mohd Fahmi Zahari

Citation: AIP Conference Proceedings 1974, 050012 (2018); doi: 10.1063/1.5041712

View online: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5041712
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/apc/1974/1
Published by the American Institute of Physics
 The Impact of Class Absenteeism on Student’s Academic
Performance using Regression Models
Nurhafizah Ahmad1,a, Ahmad Zia Ul-Saufie1,b, Siti Asmah Mohamed1,c,
Hasfazilah Ahmat2,d and Mohd Fahmi Zahari1,e
1
Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences,
Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Pulau Pinang, 13500 Permatang Pauh, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
2
Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences
Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

a
Corresponding author: nurha9129@ppinang.uitm.edu.my
b
ahmadzia101@ppinang.uitm.edu.my
c
sitiasmah109@ppinang.uitm.edu.my
d
hasfazilah@tmsk.uitm.edu.my
e
mohdfahmi138@ppinang.uitm.edu.my

Abstract. Absence from classes among students nowadays is a global issue that is not only occurs in Malaysia. Various
researches on absenteeism only focused on the absenteeism but lack on the relationship between students' class
attendance and academic performance. Thus, this study aimed to find the relationship between class attendance and
academic performance of the students. A sample of 98 diploma in engineering students who enrolled in Calculus course
in 2016 in UiTM Penang Branch involved in this study. Two important data were recorded during the 2016 session
namely, the student attendance for 14 weeks and the final scores of the students. The statistical analysis used in this
research is descriptive, student’s t-test, Pearson correlation and regression model. The findings of this study indicated that
there are significant differences between class attendance and academic performance (t-test = 23.45, p <0.05). The study
also revealed that there was a negative correlation between absence from class with the academic achievement
(r = -0.611). Regression model was developed to determine the impact of class absenteeism on student academic
performance. The result showed that the most important finding was that once the students do not attend Calculus
classes, there will be a reduction of 2.11% in the final exam scores of the students. The findings of this study can benefit
the university in the planning to have students who are graduating on time. In addition, this study can also create
awareness to students about the disadvantages of not attending classes on their academic achievement.

Keywords: Absenteeism, Statistical analysis, Regression Model

INTRODUCTION
Absenteeism is an issue that is widely discussed amongst academicians worldwide, particularly those who are
involved in education field such as school and higher education institution. Absenteeism is a habit of failure to
present himself or herself frequently in program or event without a reasonable excuse and an absentee is used to
describe somebody who is not there to do a particular task in person. Absence can be defined as a very personal
decision based on both motivation to attend and ability to attend [1]. Previous studies have proven that successful
students in their academics’ performance were based on their attendance to classes or lectures.

Proceeding of the 25th National Symposium on Mathematical Sciences (SKSM25)

AIP Conf. Proc. 1974, 050012-1–050012-5; https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5041712
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1681-9/$30.00

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 Students who attend classes or lectures have better academic performances as compared to truant students. Horn
and Jansen [2] stated that academic performance should positively correlate with class attendance. Research by
Ahmed [3] revealed a significant moderate positive relationship (r = 0.716) between student’s attendance and
academic performance at Simad University in Mogadishu, Somalia. The results indicated that one level increase of
courses attendances lead to a higher academic performance by 0.716. In addition, Anna [4] found that exam point
has a positive correlation (r = 0.54) with attendance in the university. Similarly, the findings from Romer [5] and
Park and Kerr [6] also indicated that attendance and academic performance were positively correlated. However,
some of the students still continue their absenteeism due to several unreasonable excuses such as engaging in
various forms merrymaking and sleeping late [7].
According to Schmulian and Coetzee [8], students who passed in the final examination had 93% of attendance
whilst students who failed in the final examination had attendance at 89%. In addition, there were positive
correlations between academic performance and attendance of students for the first assessment (r = 0.29) and the
second assessment (r = 0.23).
Many factors have been identified which associated academic performances and absenteeism among students.
Schmulian and Coetzee [8] suggested that the ethnic backgrounds, cultural and student financial support influenced
the academic performance among students in South Africa. Hunter and Tetley [9] indicated that the way of lecturers
deliver the subjects attract the students to understand the subject matter. According to Gump [10], the reasons for
absenteeism include the failures of lecturers to connect the content or text of lecture to assessment or the real world.
Besides, factors such as poor quality of lecture content, accessibility of lecture material on online forms,
unchallenging lecturers, timing of lectures and competing assignment commitments also contribute to the
absenteeism.
In other cases, the failure to attend the lecture is due to students’ engagement in part-time job to support their
education. In the study by Ford, Wilson, and Bosworth [11] on the impact of casual work on students’ performance
stated that many study had shown that the large number, between 27% and 57% of students, choose to do part time
job which apparently resulted in students tend to absent from class due to work commitments [12]. In addition,
students only focus on their assignments because they thought their assignments will contribute to high marks [13].
Foy [14] studied on attendance and its effect on academic achievement in Alliance Public School in Portland,
Oregon. The findings indicated that there were significant negative relationship between number of class absent and
academic grades at all grades, fourth (r = -0.364), eighth (r = -0.368) and eleventh grades (r = -0.171). Moreover,
fourth and eighth grades showed a strong negative correlation between absenteeism and mathematics results. In
another study by Griswold and Patterson [15], they found that absenteeism not only affected mathematics and
reading grades only, but so were language art achievement and social study achievement scores. In addition to that,
the findings from Blerkom [16] also yielded moderate negative correlation between course grades and class
attendance.
Marburger [17] who studied on absenteeism and undergraduate exam performance found that the overall
absenteeism reduced the average final exam marks by 2.3%. In addition to that, the findings from Mohammed [18]
also found that the class absenteeism negatively impacts students’ ultimate course results. Rudina and Julinda [19]
observed the case of student attendance at less than 85% and they found that the probability of these students to get
failing grades was 37.5% whereas the probability not to get successful grades was 58.3%. Similarly, Richard and
Deirdre [20] studied on student’s attendance and academic performance in undergraduate of medical student. The
results showed that the majority of failure grade (60%) occurred in the students with attendance rates lower than
80%.
In general, this study was carried out with the intention of determining the relationship between absenteeism and
academic performance among Calculus student in UiTM Cawangan Pulau Pinang. This study will also determine
the contribution of absenteeism to academic performance among students.

METHODOLOGY
This research focused only for Calculus I at UiTM Pulau Pinang on diploma engineering students. The selection
of sample was based on cluster sampling. A sample of 98 out of 200 students was selected based on Krejcie and
Morgon table [21]. Two important data involved for this study were number of class absences and final exam
marks. The data collected were analyzed using simple binomial test, independent t-test, correlation and simple
linear regression. Binomial test was used to determine sample size effect by either making it incentive and overlay-
sensitive. T-test was used to determine whether there was significant effect between absenteeism and academic

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performances. Pearson correlation was used to determine the strength of relationship between number of class
absence and academic performance and simple linear regression was used to determine the contribution of number
of absence class towards final exam marks.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Sample size is critical to be consider when conducting any statistical tests by either making it insensitive (at
small sample sizes) or overlay –sensitive (at very large sample sizes) [22]. Therefore, a simple binomial test is used
in this study. Result in Table 1 shows that there were no significant difference in gender throughout the sample.
This result indicated that the data reasonably balanced in representing the gender in this study, where the proportion
from the population of 2/3 (male) and 1/3 (female), which is not much different from the sample of study.

TABLE 1. Binomial Test

Category N Observed Prop. Test Prop. Exact Sig. (1-
tailed)
Group 1 1.00 65 .66 .66 .520
Gender Group 2 2.00 33 .34
Total 98 1.00

The independent t-test was used in this study to determine the significant effect between number of call absence
and academic performance. The result of independent t-test is as shown in Table 2. The table shows that the t-test
assumes the variances in gender group are roughly equal. This study also revealed that there were significant
different in mean final exam scores for student absence class less than and equal 20% and student absence class
more than 20% (t-test = 6.74, p-value < 0.05). This finding also showed that mean for student absence less than
20% (mean=65.0135) in the final exam scores was higher than that of the student absence class more than 20%
(mean=40.3689). Rudina and Julinda [19] found that students that miss 4 weeks have 66.7% probability to receive a
failing grade and 80% are likely not to get a successful grade. A similar result is also confirmed by Richard and
Deirdre [20].

TABLE 2. Independent Samples Test

Levene's Test for t-test for Equality of Means
Equality of
Variances
F Sig. t df Sig. (2- Mean Std. Error 95% Confidence Interval of
tailed) Difference Difference the Difference
Lower Upper
Equal
variances .866 .354 6.740 96 .000 24.64460 3.65646 17.38657 31.90262
assumed
Mark
Equal
variances not 5.814 23.619 .000 24.64460 4.23871 15.88886 33.40033
assumed

Table 3 shows the correlation of number of absenteeism to student performance in final exam. The findings
showed that there was significant moderate negative linear relationship between number of absenteeism to student
performance in final exam (r = -0.611). This finding was in line with the findings of Coladarci and Cobb [23] and
Strickland [24] which indicated a negative correlation between absenteeism and grades. In addition, the results in
Foy (2005) also showed the negative relationship between number of math absences and mathematics grades (r = -
0.340). As mentioned in the above paragraphs there were similarities between this result and prior studies by Rudina
and Julinda [19] and Mohammed [18].

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 TABLE 3. Correlation
Independent Dependent Pearson p-value
variable variables Correlation
Number of class Final exam -0.611 0.000
absences marks

Simple linear regression model was developed with final exam marks (as dependent variable) and number of
class absences (as independent variables) for 98 samples. Table 4 shows the summary model for academic
performance. Coefficient of determination for this model was 37.4% which indicated that 37.4% variation in final
exam marks is explained by the variation of number of class absent. Anna et al [4] also found that 38.4% variation
in exam performance is explained by the variation of total attendance.

Several initial assumptions of residual diagnostic have been checked to ensure simple linear regression model
fulfill all the ordinary least squares assumption. The result showed that the residual of final exam marks was
approximately normal, uncorrelated and constant variance.

The coefficient of regression model was -2.124 which means that when the student absences by 1 class, the final
exam marks is expected to decrease on average by 2.124%. This result was in agreement with the previous
findings by Marburger [17] which indicated that the overall study absenteeism reduced the mean score by 2.3%.
The evidence from this study provides significant effect between absenteeism and academic performance. In
contrast, Ahmed [13] has indicated that one level increase of courses attendances lead to 0.716 higher academic
performance at Simad University in Mogadishu, Somalia.

TABLE 4. Summary of regression model

Model Unstandardized Coefficients t Sig.
B Std. Error

(Constant) 67.648 1.699 39.809 .000

1
Number of
-2.124 .281 -7.567 .000
absence class

CONCLUSION
The findings of this study suggested that the academic performance was significantly affected by absenteeism.
The result showed there were significantly moderate negative correlation between number of absenteeism and final
exam scores (r = -0.611, p-value <0.05). This study also revealed that there were significant different in mean final
exam scores for student absence class less than and equal 20% and student absence class more than 20% (t-test =
6.74, p-value < 0.05). The main finding was that if the student absences by 1 class, the final exam marks is expected
to decrease on average by 2.124%. It is hoped that the results of this study can benefit the university in the planning
to have students who are graduating on time. In addition, this study can also create awareness to students about the
effect of not attending classes on their academic achievement.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This study was funded by Geran Penyelidikan Academic & Research Assimilation (ARAS), Institut Pengurusan
Penyelidikan & Inovasi, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Project Code: 600-IRMI/DANA 5/3/ARAS (0044/2016).
.

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