“Daily Attendance as a Factor in the Academic

Performance of Grade 12

STEM 1A-4A A.Y. 2019-2020”

A Research Paper
Presented to the Faculty of
Senior High School
Basic Education Department
University of Pangasinan PHINMA

In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Subject
Practical Research 2

By:

ANDRADA, SARAH
CACHO, KATHERINE
CLAVERIA, HANNAH
EDUARTE, MARVIN
GALVELO, MARYKATE
JIMENEZ, JAMELA
MANZON, JESSAH
PEROCHO, JAIMIE
SANCHEZ, ERICA
SORIANO, MICAH
URBANO, CAMELA

MS. BERNADETTE DARA G. DELMONTE

Adviser

July 2019
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CHAPTER I
The Problem and Background of the Study

Background of the Study

Education is, “something that a decently functioning society obliges

people to get a certain amount of, even if they don’t really want to”.

Successful schools begin by engaging students and making sure

they come to school regularly. That may seem obvious. What’s less

obvious is that the consequences of low attendance are serious for all

children and for the community, not just the students who miss school.

Educators, parents, and politicians are continuously searching for that

magic solution that will reform our public education system and establish

a flawless system of education for our youth, by providing them with a

quality education (Jeffrey, 2012). “The success of the school in carrying

out its primary charge of educating and socializing students is contingent

on students attending school regularly”.

Research has proven that there is a high correlation between school

attendance and academic performance and success, while absence from

school is often the greatest single cause of poor performance and

achievement.

Muro (2010), in his study emphasizes that attendance is a priority

for educators. This study investigates attendance in the primary grades.

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The goal is to identify early indicators of poor attendance at the primary

level in order to provide interventions that could have an impact on middle

and high school students’ attendance. Research conducted in this area

could provide school divisions with vital information about student

attendance patterns at the primary level that could reveal or predict an

influence on student attendance in the middle and high school level. The

building block that must be in place to meet student achievement and high

school graduation goals is attendance. Physically being present in school

is one of the most basic conditions for a student’s success, if students are

not in school, they are not learning what is being taught and could be

falling behind in earning the course credits needed to graduate. Learning

is a progressive activity; each day's lessons build upon those of the

previous day(s), reading the material and completing work independently

does not compensate for the loss of insight gained during class discussion

or the loss of competency acquired through explanation. Many classes use

lectures, discussions, demonstrations, experiments and participation as

part of the daily learning activities, and these cannot be made up by those

who are absent. Regular student participation in daily classroom activities

plays a significant role in a student's school success.

Students must be present in school in order to benefit from the

academic program in its entirety. Schools and law enforcement officials

are getting tough by enforcing laws that mandate school attendance and

by holding parents responsible for their student’s attendance. Student

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non-attendance is a problem that extends beyond the school. It affects the

student, their families, and the community.

Encouraging regular school attendance is one of the most powerful

ways you can prepare your child for success both in school and in life.

When you make school attendance a priority, you help your child get better

grades, develop healthy life habits, avoid dangerous behavior and have a

better chance of graduating from high school. When students are absent

for fewer days, their grades and reading skills often improve even among

those students who are struggling in school. Students who attend school

regularly also feel more connected to their community, develop important

social skills and friendships, and are significantly more likely to graduate

from high school, setting them up for a strong future. But when kids are

absent for an average of just two days of school per month even when the

absences are excused it can have a negative impact. These absences can

affect kids as early as Kindergarten.

As students’ progress from the primary grades excessive

absenteeism drains community resources impacting human services such

as truancy officers, social workers, probation officers, school counselors,

the courts and retail merchants who are vulnerable to loitering and

shoplifting (U.S. Department of Justice, 2011). It is critical to identify

strategies early in a child’s school career that will intervene effectively with

youth who are chronically truant and interrupt their progress to

delinquency and other negative behaviors by addressing the underlying

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reasons behind their absence from school. A child who does not attend

school regularly will be unlikely to keep up with the work. The more

students miss school, the lower their grades; the lower their grades, the

less they want to stay in school; the less they want to stay in school, the

more likely they will drop out of school. Students who miss school are more

likely to be at-risk for anti-social or criminal behavior.

Poor school attendance has high costs in terms of young people’s

academic learning, connection to peers, teachers and schools, health, high

school graduation, and future employment. Chronic absenteeism is

defined as missing 10% or more of school, regardless of the reason for the

absence.

Student Physical Health was the most frequently identified factor

contributing to chronic absenteeism. Physical health played a significant

role in missed school for chronically absent students. Included within the

student physical health category were health issues ranging from flu to

headaches to asthma to dental care. No single health issue stood out over

others, but it does appear that communicable diseases (such as flu and

cold) have the largest impact, as opposed to chronic conditions (such as

asthma or diabetes).

Transportation was identified as a contributing factor to missed

school for chronically absent students. Challenges reported in the

transportation category include inconvenient access, having to drop

students off at multiple school sites, and time. The inconvenient nature of
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transportation was the most commonly reported challenge within the

category. Distance, time, and frequency of service are all transportation

issues that discourage students from regular attendance. Of note is that

safety on the way to or from school had a lesser reported influence on

attendance. Academic issues were identified as causing absenteeism for

slightly more than one-fourth of chronically absent student. Issues

reported in this category included preparedness, boredom, and

understanding. Boredom was noted as an aversion to attendance for

chronically absent high school students. Perceived relevance and level of

challenge of curriculum were issues cited that led to academic boredom.

Student mental health issues played a substantial role in chronic

absenteeism. Mental health was a factor in about one quarter of all

chronically absent cases. Mental health covers a range of issues, such as

depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. Responses within the mental

health category were spread across all of these issues. Relationship issues

were reported as contributing to missed days for more than one in five

chronically absent students. Identified challenges included relationship

issues with other students, as well as relationship issues with adults at

the school. It is important to note, however, that there is a correlation with

age.

Excessive absenteeism in the primary age child is usually a result

of childhood illnesses or parental educational neglect. In addition, parental

apathy or recollection of his or her negative past school experience could

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hinder promoting the importance of education and school attendance.

Society and schools cannot afford to allow a single child to leave school

early, or have excessive absenteeism. Schools continue to attempt to

eliminate absenteeism by establishing programs to keep students in

school starting at the 5-primary level. Non-attendance is an early warning

sign for future problems that negatively affect student achievement.

Absenteeism is detrimental to students’ achievement, promotion,

self-esteem, and employment potential. Students who miss school fall

behind peers in the classroom, which in turn increases the likelihood that

that they will become at-risk students and will drop out of school. In a

study conducted by Rothman (2010), high student absenteeism rates were

found to affect the achievement of students’ that attend regularly by

disrupting the existing learning groups. According to Schagen, Benton &

Rutt, contextual variables such as, school size and location, have a large

influence on the extent of absence within schools. “The most important of

the contextual variables is percentage of free or reduced-price meals within

a school, which is associated with increased levels of absence”

At the core of school improvement and education reform is an

assumption so widely understood that it is rarely invoked: students have

to be present and engaged in order to learn. That is why the discovery that

thousands of our youngest students are academically at-risk because of

extended absences when they first embark upon their school careers is as

remarkable as it is consequential. Schools and communities have a choice:

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we can work together early on to ensure families get their children to class

consistently or we can pay later for failing to intervene before problems are

more difficult and costly to ameliorate. Schools have served our country

well as gateways to more opportunity for children. What happens when

children first enter school deeply affects whether this opportunity is

realized. During the early elementary years, children are gaining basic

social and academic skills critical to ongoing academic success. Unless

students attain these essential skills by third grade, they require extra

help to catch up and are at grave risk for eventually dropping out of school.

Common sense and research suggest that being in school consistently is

important to ensuring children gain a strong foundation for subsequent

learning. Research shows that children, regardless of gender,

socioeconomic status or ethnicity, lose out when they are chronically

absent (that is, they miss nearly a month of school or more over the course

of a year). Children chronically absent in kindergarten show lower levels

of achievement in math, reading and general knowledge during first grade.

Going to school regularly in the early years is especially critical for children

from families living in poverty, who are less likely to have the resources to

help children make up for lost time in the classroom. Among poor children,

chronic absence in kindergarten predicts the lowest levels of educational

achievement at the end of fifth grade.

When chronic early absence occurs, everyone pays. The educational

experiences of children who attend school regularly can be diminished

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when teachers must divert their attention to meet the learning and social

needs of children who miss substantial Introduction 4 amounts of school.

By working together to ensure all children attend school consistently,

schools and communities make it more possible for teachers to teach and

children to learn. School attendance reflects the degree to which schools,

communities and families adequately address the needs of young children.

Attendance is higher when schools provide a rich, engaging learning

experience, have stable, experienced and skilled teachers and actively

engage parents in their children’s education. Chronic absence decreases

when schools and communities actively communicate consistently to all

students and their parents, and reach out to families when their children

begin to show patterns of excessive absence. Attendance suffers when

families are struggling to keep up with the routine of school despite the

lack of reliable transportation, long work hours in poorly paid jobs with

little flexibility, unstable and unaffordable housing, inadequate health care

and escalating community violence. At the same time, communities can

help lower chronic absence by providing early childhood experiences that

help prepare children and families for the entry into formal education.

In our day, societies are intensively facing school dropout problems

that have personal, social and financial dimensions and trying to develop

policies in order to prevent or decrease this problem. Studies show that

individuals who drop out of school have more health problems, have an

increased risk of involvement in crime, are obliged to work at a job with a

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low income, live ten years shorter than the average and perform their social

responsibilities such as voting in elections less compared to the others

(Dockery, 2012).

Students experience each and everyone of these circumstances in

their day to day to lives. Academic Performance will always be a reason for

someone to strive or to just back down in school, researches behind these

specific conducts have resulted to different outcomes. Researchers want

to expand their knowledge of how these things affect and sometimes

control the mind and behavior of students. We live in a world where not

everything is assured, just like what Heraclitus stated “change is the only

thing permanent” that’s why numerous researches are still being done up

to date and new information are being received and are found out.
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Statement of the Problem

This study aims to determine the Effects of Daily Attendance to the

Academic Performance of the Grade 12 STEM 1A-4A at PHINMA University

of Pangasinan.

Specifically, this study seeks to answer the following specific

questions:

1. What is the profile of respondents in terms of;

a. Age;

b. Gender; and

c. General Average for the last semester?

2. What is the impact of daily attendance to the academic performance

of the respondents?

3. What are the reasons of chronic absenteeism that they encounter?

4. Is there a significant relationship between daily attendance and the

academic performance of Grade 12 STEM 1A- 4A?

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Hypothesis

In this section, the researchers discussed the hypothetical results of

the study about “Daily Attendance as a Factor in the Academic

Performance of Grade 12 STEM 1A-4A S.Y. 2019-2020”.

The researchers came up with a hypothesis at 0.05 level of

significance

Ha: Daily Attendance and Chronic Absenteeism has a significant

effect in the Academic Performance of Grade 12 STEM 1A- 4A.

Conceptual Framework

The variables that will be used in this study is constructed in the

following figure

Independent Variable Dependent Variable

Academic
Daily Attendance
Performance of
and Chromic
the Grade 12
Absenteeism
STEM 1A- 4A
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Figure 1. The model of the study between Independent Variable and

Dependent Variable. Since Quantitative Research Method is going to be

used in this study, this kind of Conceptual framework is the most suited

wherein it can be seen that Independent variable “Daily Attendance and

Chronic Absenteeism” directly affects the Dependent Variable “Academic

Performance of Grade 12 STEM 1A – 4A”.

Significance of the Study

The result of the study is deemed to be significant to the following:

Students. May be able to enhance their development particularly on

their behavior and their attitudes both in school and everywhere they go.

And stay sharp for events that might result of their absenteeism and

properly prevent it

Parents. May be able to guide their sons and daughters to fulfill the

dreams they have with you standing by their side so they will always feel

motivated in attending their classes

Teachers. May understand better towards the different reason

students have and undergo so that they can perform better in class
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School Heads/ Administrators. May be able to implement better

school activities that will enlighten the students and change their

perspective of the school.

PHINMA University of Pangasinan. Always welcome students

regardless of what they are having and provide a healthy and loving

society.

Researchers. The researchers that will conduct this study will help

their fellow schoolmates adjust regardless of what position they have at a

classroom. It will also enlighten their minds for the impact of attendance

in their Academic Performance.

Other Researchers/ Future Researchers. Will benefit from the

findings of this study for it will provide them of useful and credible

information/data for further studies.

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Scope and Delimitations

In the first semester of the academic year of 2019-2020 from June

2019 to October 2019, at PHINMA University of Pangasinan Arellano

Street, Dagupan city, a number of researchers conducted a study that

focused mainly on the Academic Performance of the students entitled

“Daily Attendance as a Factor in the Academic Performance of Grade

12 STEM 1A-4A A.Y. 2019-2020”. The researchers will provide a number

of tools to gather the necessary information needed for the research. The

research will be conducted inside the PHINMA University of Pangasinan.

The chosen respondents are approximately 200-250 students coming from

the Grade 12 STEM 1A-4A.

The study was not for all the people inside the PHINMA University

of Pangasinan Arellano Street, Dagupan City. There were some

delimitations that cannot be avoided by the researchers. First the large

number of students of the whole grade 12 department, so the research will

be conducted specifically on the students of 12 STEM 1A-4A to get a fewer

number of respondents yet still reliable. Secondly, the researchers need to

conduct the researchers when everyone is present to avoid getting the

wrong numbers for the research.

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Definition of Terms

The study uses a number of different significant terms that helped

in conducting the research:

Contingent. Conceptually, Dependent on or conditioned by something

else. Likely but not certain to happen: POSSIBLE.

Or

Contingent. Operationally, the success of the school in carrying out its

primary charge of educating and socializing students is contingent on

students attending school regularly.

Compensate. Conceptually, To be equivalent to: COUNTERBALANCE.

Or

Compensate. Operationally, Reading the material and completing work

independently does not compensate for the loss of insight gained during

class discussion.

Significant. Operationally, Regular student participation in daily

classroom activities plays a significant role in a student's school success.

Truancy Officer. Operationally, as students’ progress from the primary

grades excessive absenteeism drains community resources impacting

human services such as truancy officers, social workers, probation

officers, school counselors.

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Probation Officer. Operationally, as students’ progress from the primary

grades excessive absenteeism drains community resources impacting

human services such as truancy officers, social workers, probation

officers, school counselors.

Delinquency. Conceptually, A delinquent act. Conduct that is out of

accord with accepted behavior or the law. A debt on which payment is

overdue

Or

Delinquency. Operationally, Youth who are chronically truant and

interrupt their progress to delinquency and other negative behaviors by

addressing the underlying reasons behind their absence from school.

Chronic Absenteeism. Operationally, Chronic absenteeism is defined as

missing 10% or more of school, regardless of the reason for the absence.

Aversion. Conceptually, A feeling of repugnance toward something with a

desire to avoid or turn from it. A settled dislike: ANTIPATHY.

Or

Aversion. Operationally, Boredom was noted as an aversion to

attendance for chronically absent high school students.

Substantial. Operationally, Student mental health issues played a

substantial role in chronic absenteeism.

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Detrimental. Conceptually, Obviously harmful: DAMAGING. An

undesirable or harmful person or thing.

Or

Detrimental. Operationally, Absenteeism is detrimental to students’

achievement, promotion, self-esteem, and employment potential.

Invoked. Conceptually, to petition for help or support. To appeal to or cite

as authority.

Or

Invoked. Operationally At the core of school improvement and education

reform is an assumption so widely understood that it is rarely invoked.

Consequential. Conceptually, Of the nature of a secondary result:

INDIRECT. Having significant consequences: IMPORTANT.

Or

Consequential. Operationally, our youngest students are academically at-

risk because of extended absences when they first embark upon their

school careers is as remarkable as it is consequential.

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Ameliorate. Conceptually, to make better or more tolerable. To grow

better.

Or

Ameliorate. Operationally, We can pay later for failing to intervene before

problems are more difficult and costly to ameliorate.