Quantitative Assessment of DFW Rates in an Introductory Geology Course: Absenteeism is the Root of Most Evil

Common sense and experience tell us that the more a student is absent, the worse they do in a course and the more likely they are to drop it. High absentee rates in introductory lecture courses are not unusual, as many faculty members do not penalize students for missing class. Most teaching faculty would agree that certain days of the week and times of the day suffer more from absenteeism than others (e.g. Friday afternoon). Tracking detailed attendance data each semester is time consuming, and there seems to be little use in admonishing students about the results because the same pattern repeats every semester.Five sections of physical geology lecture are offered each year at Georgia Southern University to fulfill the general education requirement in science. Instructors have been tracking closely the rates of absenteeism for each student in this course. By plotting the absentee rates versus grades (for each exam as well as final course grade), day of the week of the absence, time of day of the course, student class (freshman, sophomore, etc.), and declared major, they can demonstrate quantitatively who the worst offenders are and on which days and times students commonly chose not to show up for class. The data show clearly a broad grade gap between students with good and poor attendance. Those with consistently good attendance better synthesize the course material and do progressively better on exams. Students with poor attendance perform progressively worse over time.One obvious solution to the problem is to penalize students directly for missing class as we do in our introductory lab courses, thus forcing them to show up and be exposed to the lecture material necessary for success in the course. Improving attendance will help us attain our course objectives and learning outcomes, and will help answer the question of whether high failure and drop rates in these courses are related to specific instructors, their teaching styles, differences in exams, or whether they are related only to student behavior. Given today's climate in higher education where accountability and assessment demand much attention, systematically gathering such data will allow faculty, chairs, and administrators to better understand the issues and behaviors that allow students to succeed, or cause them to fail in their course work and college experience.