How behaviour and motivation mediate the impact of school absences on achievement

Using longitudinal data from England, linking the National Pupil Database (NPD) school register data with Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) survey data ( N = 7204), this study examines whether psychosocial characteristics mediate the association between school absences at ages 12/13 and standardised achievement tests at 16. The findings show that behavioural and motivational factors at age 14 account for a modest part of this association. In particular, externalising behaviour, risky behaviour and educational motivation each mediate part of the association between school absence and achievement, whereas prosocial behaviour and self‐esteem do not. These findings were replicated using comparable data and analytic methods in Wales, providing further support for the robustness of the findings. The results suggest that responses to school absence should continue to prioritise supporting pupils to recover missed learning, while recognising that behavioural and motivational support may also help to mitigate the impact of absences on achievement.