LITERATURE REVIEW

ABSENTEEISM: ITS EFFECT ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SELECTED SHS

STUDENTS

For the purpose of this study this literature review will analyze improving

student attendance through building a family connection through parental

involvement. If students are in school on time everyday then learning takes place.

By building a family connection which highlights the importance of attendance, this

will lead to improving student performance on standardized test, Massachusetts

Comprehensive Assessment Systems/Scholastic Reading Inventory (MCAS/SRI).

According to this study, the decreasing rate of student truancy and absenteeism

has been and continues to be the goal of school districts across the nation for over a

century. Luckily, little research focuses on what schools can do to increase and

maintain students daily attendance and even fewer studies explore how families-

school-community can build a partnership to work together towards this goal.

Corville and Smith, (1995) state that Despite the long history of concern over

student attendance, the issue has received relatively little attention from

educational researchers.Instead of focusing on student attendance, researchers

have mainly focused on students who drop out of high school before receiving their

high school diploma. Even though a great deal of research exits on students

dropping out of school more so than on truancy, research on students who dropout

points to early detection of truancy in their lives before they drop out of school.

Today, The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has become the catalyst toward

improved student achievement (Zamudio p.10, 2004). The NCLB Act requires

schools to educate all students with emphasis on subgroups, despite barriers that
 LITERATURE REVIEW

have an impact on student attendance (NCLB, 2001). Researchers have attempted

to define student attendance and have investigated the importance of student

attendance and its relationship to academic achievement (Ziegler, 1972; Norris,

2000; Applegate, 2003). Research supports that students who attend school

regularly have higher grades than those students with high absences (Redick &

Nicoll, 1990). Fleming and Zafirau (1982) found that over three-fourths of school

failure rates were explained through student attendance percentages. Many state

departments of education and school boards have redesigned existing school

attendance policies, provided programs to improve attendance issues, and installed

a more stern monitoring system for schools, as well as applied academic constraints

for students non-attendance (Redick & Nicoll, 1990). About one-third of the school

divisions within Virginia had between 32 and 53% of their students miss more than

10 days of school (Office of Accountability Project (Department of Education, 1996).

During the years of 1996-1998, the General Assembly approved the appropriations

to fund the Department of Education that grants for reducing truancy and

supporting safety in elementary and middle schools. Eligibility was based on the

number of elementary and middle schools in a school division that had the poorest

attendance records. The indicator of excessive absenteeism was the percentage of

students absent more than ten days in a school year (Wheat, 1998). The

connection between attendance and achievement is grounded in common sense

(Wheat, 1998, p2). Unless a student attends, he or she will have difficulty

learning.In the commonwealths public schools, it was estimated that by reducing

excessive absenteeism by 25%, it would enable 22,000 more young students to

score above the national average on standardized tests (Wheat, 1998). In addition

to that, research indicates that regardless of social and economic factors the
 LITERATURE REVIEW

schools with higher attendance rates achieved higher test scores (Wheat, 1998;

Greene, 1990; Applegate, 2004). Based on data gathered from Virginias public

schools annual reporting of student absenteeism to the Virginia Department of

Education in 1996, one-third of the school divisions had between 32 and 53% of the

students missing more than 10 days of school. Unless a student is productively

engaged in off-campus research, he will find it difficult to learn what is taught at

school in his absence (Wheat, 1998, p.2). According to the research, by improving

students attendance, the students achievement would rise (Redick & Nicoll, 1990;

Virginia Department of Education, 1997; Rothman, 2001 ;).

This review of literature focuses on the importance of student attendance and

its impact on student achievement. When a students non-attendance increases,

research has shown a corresponding decrease in students achievement

(Herberling& Shaffer, 1995). DeJung and Duckworth, (1986), in an article, Coping

with Student Absenteeism; they reported that some schools are using penalties for

students that are in violation of the school attendance policy. They further states

that the penalties were only effective if 23 students were concerned about their

grades. A basic problem with all penalties is that they use aversion to force

students to participate in school. They do not build positive motivation. The forced

attendee becomes the classroom teachers discipline problem (Duckworth, 1988,

p.3). Kovas (1986) found that schools that uses attendance policies with grade

penalties have seen an increase in average daily attendance (ADA). The Texas

school system uses a similar policy with administrator input on excused and

unexcused absences as well as the Southeastern Virginia School District used for

this study. Ligon (1990) in his evaluation of the Austin School District found that the

beginning stages of the five-day absence attendance policy, the attendance in high
 LITERATURE REVIEW

schools were high, however the number of excused absences has risen making the

five-day absence policy ineffective. School attendance is an integral part of a

childs success in school, the rate at which children are absent from school is

relevant (Atkinson, 1998, p.4). Chappel (2004) examined an after school program

as a connection to regular school attendance and academic achievement. Linkage

between after-school programs and the school day may translate into transportable

strategies for school leaders for improving students achievement and attendance

(Chappel, 2004, p. 10). Chappel (2004) also examined the dosage effects, which

refers to the amount of student participation in a 21st Century Community Learning

Centers after-school program. The program employed strategies to build resilience,

which refers to the process of coping with adversity, change, or opportunity in the

wake of high-risk situations or after setbacks (Deschamps, 1992), in children who

qualified for free or reduced price lunch. Descriptive statistics were used to describe

the students similarities and differences in the study. The data were analyzed for all

students by grade, gender, 26 ethnicity, residence (who the child lives with), and

program referral source. The results demonstrated that the characteristics of the

two groups were similar to each other prior to the after-school programs

intervention. The independent variables grade, gender, ethnicity, and residence, did

not demonstrate significant differences in the dependent variables. There were no

significant differences prior to the intervention (after-school program) in the two

groups for school attendance, reading and math achievement, and perceived

competence and social acceptance (Chappel, 2004). For the variables associated

with perceived competence and social acceptance, students in the high dose group

demonstrated significant differences in mean scores between the pre and posttest

administrations. Student scores across all subscales showed gains. This indicated a
 LITERATURE REVIEW

positive impact on perceived competence and social acceptance for the students

who received a high dosage of after-school programming by participating more

frequently. Students in the low dose group were found to have a significant

difference in mean scores in the subscale labeled cognitive competence but not in

any other subscale (Chappel, 2004). The afterschool program may be a significant

source of academic support for these students (Chappel, 2004; Davis, 2004).

Historically, schools have always held the student accountable for truant

behavior. Corville-Smith, (1995) and Hoyle (1998) state that Truant and chronically

absent students were considered deviants. Frequently schools did not contact

families until the problem was so severe that the student was failing their courses.

Also research shows that the learning environment of an entire school can be

affected by an individual students attendance problem. Most schools receive funds

by the population they have attending school on a regular basis. If Districts and

school attendance rates are low, educational programs and resources are in

jeopardy of being cut. Also, in some locations student attendance is used as an

indicator of how well a school is functioning and requirements are set and

monitored for rating (Maryland State Department of Education, 1999).

The research design for this study was a non-experimental quantitative study,

using archival data to study the relationship between attendance, socio-economic

status, and mobility, and student achievement on the Missouri Assessment Program

(MAP) in communication arts classes. Interval data were used to determine if there

was a statistically significant relationship between student achievement and

attendance, socio-economic status, and mobility (Applegate 2003). The population

for this study consisted of 1,811 seventh grade students from a large mid-western

school district. All seventh graders in the school district are required to take the MAP
 LITERATURE REVIEW

achievement test at the same time every year. For Applegates study, the variable

attendance was divided into three categories. Category 1 represents (low) was

determined as 84.9% and below, Category 2 represents (medium) was determined

as 85% to 93.9% and Category 3 represents (high) was determined as 94% and

above. Socio-economic status was divided into those students who qualify free or

reduced lunch and those students who do not qualify free or reduced lunch. Mobility

was divided into students attending the same school for two years, students

attending two schools in that time period, and students attending three or more

schools in a two-year period (Applegate, 2003). The findings of the study indicate

that high attendance and high socio-economic status is related to high

achievement. The results further indicate that there is 30 significance in the

relationship between the independent variable of attendance and the dependent

variable of achievement on the MAP in the area of communication arts (Applegate,

2003). These results also show that there are significant differences in how students

performed on the test depending on student placement within the student mobility

levels. The results indicated that low mobility is related to high achievement. The

findings of this study conclude that there is a significant relationship between

student achievement and variables such as attendance, socio-economic status, and

mobility (Applegate, 2003).

The following limitations have been identified that may have an impact on

the ability to generalize the results of this study to other school districts. A longer

period (more than a year) of assessment might produce different results. A

comprehensive report of achievement in all academic areas is not available, since

the data used include the communication arts portion of the MAP test only.

Applegate suggests that educational leaders focus on areas or predictors within the
 LITERATURE REVIEW

family, society, or individual circumstances of the child, as well as on the academic

surroundings and materials. Finding ways to determine the success of individual

students by identifying certain variables early on could affect the teaching methods,

placement, additional services, or a variety of other factors used by schools

(Applegate, 2003).

Other Studies

Gamble (2004) conducted a quantitative research study to determine the

effect of student mobility on achievement and gain-score test results in both

reading and math. The population used for the study consisted of all students in the

Knox 31 County School System in grades 3-5 at the time of the 2003 spring

administration of TCAP. The population consisted of 12,138 regular and special

education students. Data collected for each student included student ethnicity,

gender, grade level, mobility, school and socio-economic status. The scale scores

for the 2002 and 2003 TCAP test were obtained from the web and subtracted from

each other to obtain a gain-score test result. The results of the study indicate that

student mobility negatively effects student achievement in reading and

mathematics, which supports previous and current research (Rumberger and

Larson, 1993). Students who move frequently suffer academically from the

discontinuity of instruction (Horwitch, 2004, p.4). Zamudio (2004) conducted a

quantitative research study to determine the relationship between mobility and

achievement in elementary schools controlling for student background

characteristics (ethnicity, gender, and family income of the students) and school

characteristics (attendance rate, school setting, teacher experience, teacher

educational attainment, and per pupil expenditures of a school) and if a negative

effect on achievement is larger for low socio-economic status students compared to

high socio-economic status students. The study sample consisted of 487 public

elementary schools in Arizona that housed third and fifth grade students. The

Stanford 9 standardized test results for the year 2001-2002 school year were

utilized to measure academic achievement. For this study, school mobility was

measured as the percentage of students who transfer in to a school or the

percentage of students who transfer out of a school during a given school year.

Reversion analysis was utilized to find the relationship between 32 students

achievement and school mobility controlling for ethnicity and gender of students,

attendance, school setting, teacher experience, teacher education level, and per

pupil expenditures. Test scores derived from the Stanford 9 were analyzed for

students in third and fifth grades and for math, reading and language subjects

(Zamudio, 2004). The study findings show that mobility is negatively related to

academic achievement as measured by standardized test scores. The relationship

remained significant even when controlling for student/family background and

school characteristics (Zamudio, 2004). The results of this study highlight the

negative relationship between ethnicity and socio-economic status and academic

achievement; however, the negative relationship with mobility remained statistically

significant while controlling for ethnicity and socio-economic status. For all reversion

analyses performed, Zamudio (2004) found that attendance had an effect on

academic achievement for students in all subject areas for both third and fifth grade

students. Attendance appears to be positively correlated to academic achievement

for high SES students (Zamudio, 2004, p.100). Results also confirmed that a

students family background characteristics are a stronger predictor of student

achievement as compared to school characteristics (Zamudio, 2004). The study

findings also revealed that the transfer out rate measurement of mobility matters
 LITERATURE REVIEW

more as compared to the transfer in rate measure. The transfer out rate remained

significant in the regressions while the transfer in rate did not remain significant

once controls were added. Zamudio (2004) concluded that these results could

possibly be linked to the sample schools included in the study had higher 33

transfer out rates and /or that the transfer in rate only accounts for Arizona

transfers, therefore diminishing the actual number of transfers. Zamudio (2004)

found the following: A plausible explanation is that the results reflect the

composition of the sample. He further stated that it is possible that the transfer-out

rate is diminishing the climate for the stable students by negatively affecting

achievement due to the disruption of existing learning groups. He determined that

high performing students are possibly being pulled out of school for an alternative

schooling option. Lastly the study revealed that mobility was not a significant

predictor of achievement for schools considered primarily made up of low SES

students, however the results indicate a consistent negative effect on academic

achievement for schools predominately of high SES composition (Zamudio, 2004).

This finding was opposite of what was hypothesized. Perhaps low performing

students are moving into a high SES school therefore decreasing the average test

scores and/ or low performing students adjust better to school when moving as

compared to affluent students (Zamudio, 2004, p.109) Low SES students move

frequently due to financial fluctuations therefore moving has less impact on the

student, where as high SES students move due to family breakups or custody issues

(Zamudio, 2004). The Kids Mobility Project (1998) suggests that a major reason for

student mobility is related to poverty, abuse and divorce (Alexander, Entwisle, &

Dauber, 1996). The limitations noted in the study include the accuracy of the study

results. The collection of data could have included individual student data along
 LITERATURE REVIEW

with school 34 data. Separating migrant and non-migrant students could have

provided more exactness. There were some unmeasured factors such as parental

structure, and cultural values that could have affected the study results differently.

Norris (2000) conducted a similar study for the Omaha Public School district (OPS)

of predictors of student achievement as they relate to socio-economic status,

race/ethnicity, attendance and student mobility, due to the district identifying a gap

in the achievement levels of minority and non-minority students even though the

districts test scores were above the national norm. Norris (2000) found that the

variables of socio-economic status, race/ethnicity, attendance, and mobility were

significantly and substantively correlated with academic achievement. Socio-

economic status was the strongest predictor of academic achievement as well as

race separate from socio-economic status, which she interrupts as an indicator of a

negative influential factor either external or internal in the educational and

instructional processes of the school district.

Conclusions and Implications

Researchers have identified a number of factors associated with student

achievement (Cotton, 2003). Based on the reviewed studies educational leaders will

find it necessary due to schools student accountability requirements to focus on

areas or predictors within the family, society, or individual circumstances of the

child, as well as on the academic surroundings and materials in order to meet the

diverse needs of the students (Zamudio, 2004). The educational process of a child

is a team effort, in which all members must do their part equally or suffer a

significant loss (Applegate, 2003). Identification of the causes of student

academic success or failure has long been a topic studied by educators intent on

creating an environment that would more reliably bring about improvement in

student achievement (Norris, 2000). There are factors that have been determined

to have an impact on student achievement over which schools have no control such

as, socio-economic status, race and mothers education, however educators can

investigate those factors that schools can control (Alexander, Entwisle, &Bedinger,

1994; Norris, 2000; Rothman, 2001; McCarthy, 2004). There is a need for further

research in the area of primary school student attendance and academic

achievement (Atkinson, 1998). It is no longer acceptable to educate just a portion

of our citizens to high levels, while leaving large groups of uneducated (Bartman,

1997, p.7).

The NCLB Act requires schools to educate all students with emphasis on

subgroups, despite barriers that have an impact on student attendance (NCLB,

2001). Researchers have attempted to define student attendance and have

investigated the importance of student attendance and its relationship to student

achievement (Ziegler, 1972; Norris, 2000; Applegate, 2003). Research supports that

students who attend school regularly have higher grades than students with high

absences (Redick & Nicoll, 1990).

As a result of this literature review, more research on determining the impact

of student attendance, socio-economic status and mobility on student achievement

in the primary schools is necessary.Determining the affect of student attendance,

socio-economic status and mobility on academic achievement, more importantly,

this study is among the very first to examine the impact of student attendance,

socio-economic status and mobility on student achievement of third grade students.

By the time students reach the third grade, it is possible to accurately predict who

will eventually drop out of school and who will earn a high school diploma based on

their achievement in English (Lloyd, 1978). This study could possibly contribute to
 LITERATURE REVIEW

prior research studies that indicate student achievement is effected by student

attendance. The results of this study could possibly prompt early development of

intervention strategies in the area of improving student attendance and

inadvertently affecting student achievement. The reviewed studies indicate that

nonattendance is related to poor academic performance, and schools must take an

active role in enforcing attendance as a means of improving the performance of

students (Davidson, 2002).

REFERENCES

Corville-Smith, J. (1995). Truancy, family processes, and interventions. In B. Ryan,

G.
 LITERATURE REVIEW

Adams, T. Gullotta, R.Weissberg, & R. Hampton (Eds.), The family-school

connection: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 270-287). Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage

Corville-Smith, J., Ryan, B., Adams, R., &Dalicandro, T. (1998). Distinguishing

absentee

students from regularattenders: The combined influence of personal, family,

and school factors. Journal of Youth and Adolescence,27, 629-640.

Hoyles, D. (1998). Constructions of pupil absence in the British education

service.

Child and Family Social Work, 3, 99-111.

Teasley, M. L. (2004). Absenteeism and truancy: Risk, protection, and best practice

implications for school social workers. Childrenand Schools, 26(2), 117-128.

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