QUESTION: I’m designing my spring course syllabi, and I heard that ISU has a policy against attendance policies. Is this true?
ANSWER:
According to ISU’s 2007-08 Undergraduate Catalog, "The attendance regulation of the University is based on two principles. First, students are expected to attend class regularly; and second, students are primarily responsible to the instructor in matters pertaining to class attendance. Every student will be held responsible for class attendance and successful completion of academic work. Attendance regulations are intended to encourage student maturity and are based on the assumption that academic success is the student’s primary goal in college." (emphasis added)
Research (http://www.mnsu.edu/cetl/teachingresources/articles/classattendance.html) also suggests that attendance policies can be beneficial to students. Attendance policies have been shown to increase student attendance, and increased student attendance can be tied to greater academic achievement. Thus, the question becomes, "How do I craft an attendance policy that 'promotes the successful completion of academic work' and 'encourages student maturity'?”
Attendance policies contribute to "the successful completion of academic work" when they make explicit references to the ways in which class attendance will allow students to be more fully engaged in the intellectual work of the course.
Frankly, if a student can miss a lot of classes and still earn an A in the course (when matters of attendance are set aside), that's probably more of a reflection on the course than the student. As Mark Taylor (http://www.teachtech.ilstu.edu/MarkTaylorWorkshops.php) pointed out during his appearance on campus last spring, time spent in class has to offer some kind of "added value" for the student. That is, class time should be designed to provide learning opportunities that can't easily or reasonably be duplicated outside of class. If students can't possibly engage in "the successful completion of academic work" without attending class, they are more likely to make good decisions about attendance.
Attendance policies that encourage student maturity allow students to exercise some discretion and apply their own best judgment to matters of attendance while making them responsible for the logically occurring consequences of their decisions.
An attendance policy that states "if you miss X classes, your grade will be lowered by X amount,” could be seen as discouraging student maturity by treating students like children who must do what they're told "because I say so." Such policies are probably the most susceptible to challenges as well. What if a student has A's on all his/her course work and then misses a week of class because a parent dies? Unfortunately, bad things can happen to good students, and once we've published policies like these, we may feel compelled--ethically, if not legally- to enforce them uniformly, whether we want to or not.
Do the attendance policies for your course(s) meet these two criteria? If not, you may want to consider revising them and trying a new approach just for one semester. After all, you can always restore your original policy in future semesters if the new one is not a success.
