Attendance and Students

1
Attendance and Students School Experiences

• Selina McCoy, Merike Darmody,
• Emer Smyth, Allison Dunne
• NEWB Conference
• 26 February 2008

2
Project Background

• Review existing international research and policy
  on attendance
• Irish policy
• Analysis of data collected for other ESRI studies
• Research and policy directions

3
Methodology/ Data Sources

• 4 main data sources
• School Leavers Survey 2002
• Schools Database 1994
• Junior Cycle Longitudinal Study 1st Yr Data
• Part-Time Work among post-primary students
• NEWB Data school level

4
Methodology/ Data Sources

• Data Sources
• Different measures re. attendance
• Different sources of information
• Different student groups
• Timing
• No comprehensive data source
• Existing data sources complementary range of
  perspectives

5
Key Issues

• Main issues
• Objective characteristics and attendance
• Subjective characteristics and attendance
• School factors
• Outside school factors
• Impact of poor/ non-attendance

6
Objective Characteristics

• Key Areas
• Gender - males
• Age older students skipping school starts
  early
• Social Background/Parental Education
• Travelling Community
• Region

7
Subjective Characteristics

• Key Areas
• Attitudes towards school
• Attitudes towards teachers
• Self-ratings
• Interactions with peers

8
Students Attitudes

• Findings
• Attitudes to School
• Better attendance records
• school life is a happy one for me
• Positive about benefits of schooling re
  self-confidence, communication skills
• School work worth doing
• Relationship with teachers
• Students who had skipped school
• More likely to feel teachers didnt care about
  them
• Could not talk to their teacher if they had a
  problem
• Less likely to feel teachers listen to their
  views

9
Students Attitudes

• Findings Contd.,
• Relationship with peers
• Those who had skipped school
• Less likely to feel their friends took school
  seriously
• More likely to feel too many troublemakers in
  class
• Academic self-rating
• Students with poor attendance records
• More negative about present academic performance
• More negative about potential opportunities in
  the future

10
Students Attitudes

• Findings Contd.,
• Parental Involvement
• No relationship between parental involvement and
  no. of absences
• But is related to no. of times late and skipping
  classes
• Student Identity
• Better attendance records among students with
  strong sense of control over their lives
• Students with poor attendance records more
  fatalistic and higher stress (males)

11
Outside School Factors

• Part-Time Work
• Majority working part-time
• Males more likely to work longer hours and during
  week
• Impact
• Students feel working does not impact on
  attendance or schoolwork
• Those who work actually have higher absenteeism
  rates
• Part-time work is associated with increased
  chances of early school leaving
• Working students, on average, achieve lower exam
  grades

12
Outside School Factors

• Range of Out-of-School Activities (mid 90s)
• Sports positive impact
• Social Life negative impact
• Household labour negative impact (females)
• Part-Time Work negative impact (particularly
  long hours)

13
School Factors

• School size
• primary among DD schools, higher attendance in
  smaller schools (less than 100)
• post-primary smaller schools higher
  non-attendance
• Relationship to measures of socio-economic
  composition of school
• primary variables in GCEB database, reading and
  numeracy scores
• post-primary schools serving disadvantaged
  populations, retention rates to Junior Cert,
  performance in Junior Cert exam

14
School Factors

• School Organisation and Process
• Social Mix in School
• Additional impact over and above individual
  background factors
• Even controlling for social mix, schools vary in
  attendance levels Why?
• Ability Grouping absenteeism lower among those
  in higher stream and mixed-ability
• Academic Climate attendance higher in schools
  characterised by higher teacher expectations
• Social Climate - nature of interaction between
  teachers and students

15
Impact of Poor Attendance

• 4 areas
• Drop-Out
• Exam performance
• Progression to post-school study
• Unemployment

16
Impact of Poor Attendance

• Progression to Further Study
• Those who frequently skip school less likely to
  progress to further study
• Even among those with similar Leaving Cert
  performance, those who frequently skip school
  less likely to progress

17
Impact of Poor Attendance

• Unemployment
• Higher unemployment levels among those who
  frequently skipped school
• Even among those with similar educational
  attainments

18
Future Research Opportunities

• Data based on 2004 and earlier considerable
  policy focus and resources since then on
  educational disadvantage
• Need for up-to-date comprehensive research
• Research at primary level
• Sampling based
• Need to know causes of non-attendance in order to
  develop strategies
• Are there projects that are working?
• Awareness
• Resources
• Back-up Services

19
Issues for Schools

• School Climate
• Student involvement
• Nature of curriculum
• Learning supports
• Targeting schools with concentration of
  disadvantaged students
• Importance of addressing issue (early) as means
  of preventing drop-out etc