Student Attendance and Academic Performance

Attendance is often assumed or reported in higher education literature as a predictor for academic performance. As universities seek a return to campus following the COVID-19 pandemic, the significance of attendance for academic performance is an important issue. This article presents the results of a three-year study involving 875 students enrolled in a compulsory law unit. It considers the importance of attendance for academic performance based on verifiable evidence using correlational analysis, and a critical assessment of the relevant literature. This research adds to the literature by qualifying the significance of attendance for differences in marks between students. It finds that attendance matters more for students enrolled in-person than it does for students enrolled online. It also finds that forcing attendance might have deleterious effects on female students including discrimination. These findings have important implications for policy and practice in law schools notwithstanding the limitations of this research. Mandating attendance for law courses is difficult to justify in the absence of other career objectives if the goal is to improve academic performance. This conclusion arises because mandatory attendance is contrary to universal design, and the benefits for academic performance are marginal relative to other factors such as engagement.