Until recently, in the contemporary Australian higher education context, calls for mandatory attendance policies still regularly echoed through the halls of academia, often with the rationale that this kind of engagement was in the students best interests and ensured they would achieve better grades. Surprisingly, with the changes wrought by the impact of ubiquitous digital technologies for learning, such that in higher education, many students participate in at least some online or blended courses (Dawkins et al., 2019; Allen & Seaman, 2011), mandatory attendance requirements still held influence. Some higher education providers, whilst promoting flexible learning options, had mandatory attendance requirements for online lectures or tutorials, such was the influence of traditional notions about mandatory attendance.
Even in the absence of mandatory attendance policies, academic teachers in higher education commonly expressed concern about poor student attendance, for example, after delivering lectures to almost empty lecture theatres or low attendance for online seminars. It is somewhat ironic that mandatory attendance policies could never serve as a proxy for student engagement, as even forcing students to be in a place at a certain time cannot guarantee active participation in learning. Ideas about mandatory attendance have been contested in the past with views that they are unnecessarily punitive (Muir, 2009), ethically questionable (McFarlane, 2016), and can have a negative impact, particularly on students who already face barriers to success in higher education (Stone et al., 2019).
In the current COVID-19 circumstance, and the likely future landscape in higher education in the post COVID-19 context, the very notion of attendance has been irreversibly changed, and policy or other requirements for compulsory attendance need to be challenged. Surely, the death knell for mandatory attendance policies is now tolling. Yet, the concern for student engagement that, optimistically, was the driver for misplaced focus on attendance, should not be lost. In proposing that innovation and creative approaches should replace notions of mandatory attendance, this presentation suggests that the focus must now shift to student engagement through authentic participation and self-regulated learning.
The presentation reports the findings of a recently conducted scoping review of the literature about mandatory attendance in higher education from the past 20 years. Arguments for and against mandatory attendance, reasons for non-attendance and strategies for teachers to enhance attendance, were identified. Notions of attendance in the contexts of online and blended programs were explored. Whilst the literature indicated a correlational connection between on-campus attendance and student achievement, the non-linear nature of this relationship was frequently emphasised, and individual student factors such as student motivation, conscientiousness, situational knowledge, and time spent were also implicated in the relationship between attendance and achievement.
The review revealed some interesting perspectives on alternative perspectives for academic teachers in higher education to consider, instead of focusing on place-and-time-bound notions of attendance. For example, one study found that completion of (non-compulsory) formative online tasks was a better predictor of student attainment than attendance (Mackintosh-Franklin, 2018). The findings from another study suggested that in seeking to enhance professionalism in their students, educators need to re-think the privileging of one kind of learning (on-campus classes), as opposed to independent study (Lipscombe & Snelling, 2009). In this presentation, strategies and approaches for student engagement, curriculum design and quality teaching that are purportedly more justifiable and effective than mandatory attendance requirements will be shared.