Effect of absenteeism in academic performance

THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Introduction

We can’t deny the fact that as a student we experience the scenario when our teacher are checking the attendance and there is always one to two person who is always missing and when your teacher ask why this person is missing we always answered “ I don’t know ma’am” then scratch the back of our head because we really don’t know the reason or “ as usual ma’am I am not surprise anymore” like it is a normal scenario. And when this particular student attends classes we are celebrating like it is his/her birthday or tease him/her “ what happened?” Or “ what did you ate to attend classes?” because you can count in your 10 fingers how many times he/she attended classes in a month. Absenteeism a prolonged absence of an owner from his or her property chronic absence as from work or school, also it is the rate of such absence (Merriam Webster, 2018).

Absenteeism has many effects in a person whether you are a teacher, a work worker and more especially our main target is student. Absenteeism can affect one’s life, one’s aspiring future. Student absenteeism is defined by Teasley (2004) as a period of time when a student does not attend school has become major and continuous problem among student. Absenteeism is a major dilemma in schools. A habit of absenteeism in a student can affect his/her academic performance that can eventually be a problem in reaching his/her goals; his/her ambitions in life and of course his/her future.

Absenteeism is a future destroyer because it ruins one’s life. We all know that we go to school to build our self, our ambition, our goals and our future. School is the first

stepping stone on reaching our goals, our success. But if we are wasting or taking for granted the fact that we can learn and build ourselves then we are wasting our chance to grow. Having what we call absenteeism has a lot of negative effect on the students; it tends to or can cause them to have lower grades and lack of knowledge for so many things. According to Schwartz, Radcliffe, and Barakat (2009) absenteeism has negative impact on future-oriented academic.

But what is the possible reason of absenteeism? Why do student develop absenteeism? Because remember absenteeism not just a one to two absences it is an uncommon continuous absence of a student. They may have valid and invalid reason behind them absences in class. Let us now tackle some of the possible reason absenteeism. First is Procrastination. Procrastination can be one of the reasons why student choose to not attend classes. How many times do you procrastinate and skip classes? Procrastination is one of the bad characteristic of all people. Sometimes we procrastinate and realize that we just waste time doing nothing. We missed the opportunity to go or do things. And the worst part is we don’t have the ability to turn back the time. And its frustrate us. We regret wasting time but we sometimes can’t help it. Procrastination beat the motivating side of us. Kottasz (2005) found that student with low motivation are absent more than student with high motivation level.

The second thing is Peer influence. Peer influence can be also one of the main reasons of absenteeism. We all know that friends are the people we spend most of our time with especially student, imagine how many hours he/she interact with the same people, in the same classroom each days for 1 year. It isn’t surprising that peers have a strong influence against us.

The third thing is bullying. Bullying can be also one of the reasons of absenteeism. Bullying can affect a student mental and emotional health. It can make a student felt unworthy and useless that can result in depression making them feel unwelcome at school. Bullying is a serious problem of our school even though we have campaigns advocating student to stop and stand out against bullying, unfortunately there are still record of people being bullied at school.

The Fourth thing that can be the reason of absenteeism is family problem. Family problem is a very sensitive topic. But it can affect a student just like bullying. When someone ask us what is family we immediately think and answer they are our love ones, an ally, our comfort zone and it affects us big time when we see them having a rough time.

The fifth thing that can be the reason of absenteeism is financial problem. Money is everything; money can do a lot of things and one of those things is education. Some people are so lucky that they can go to school and study however not all of us have the chance to go to school some just simple cannot.

Now that we are already done tackling some of the possible reason of absenteeism. Let us now tackle the effects of absenteeism in academic performance of senior high school student. The first effect of absenteeism in academic performance is the ability to perform in an outstanding way. Does the student who has the habit of absenteeism perform in class in an excellent and outstanding way? Is absenteeism never been a hindrance in their academic performance? Do they still go up in stage and receive their medals? Is it even possible for them despite having the habit of absenteeism?

The Second effect of absenteeism in academic performance is average grades/performance in class. Is absenteeism stopping a student to reach his/her full potential in class? Is it making them reach just average? What do they do to still manage to have average grades and not failing grades? How can they cope up with their academic activities despite continuous absences?

Third and last effect of absenteeism in student academic performance is students are mark as need improvement or poor performance. Is it because of the times that they suppose to learn they had missed the chances and opportunity to learn something new? Student doesn’t even participate on the discussion and pass activities on time. How huge is absenteeism affect a student academics that it can lead on failing grades? As what they say “ school is the heart of learning”. Epstein and Sheldon (2002) stated that student with absenteeism miss opportunities to learn the material that enables them to succeed later in school and; fall behind their classmates in academic achievement. Previous studies have also revealed that student absenteeism is related to academic failure and academic performance.

How do we stop absenteeism? Is it possible? There is no impossible if a person is willing to change for the better. All it needs is self disciple and self will. Here are some of the things that can help to avoid absenteeism. The first one is carefully choose people you spend most of your time with; In short choose your friends. Choose friends that can motive you to do things because sometimes if you choose a wrong group or friends they can also be the one that cause you problem. Choose friends that have positive impact on you that makes you motivated and produced.

The second one is counseling, some people are afraid to open up with their love ones or friends because they feel like they just put more hats on their head. don’t be afraid to reach out for those professionals they are the one who will listen and help

And lastly avoid procrastinating and stay motivated. Procrastinating will not do any good on you. Start planning the things you want to accomplish in a day will keep you motivated and well organized.

Conceptual Framework

This research study is anchor mainly on the two important variables: The absenteeism and the academic performance of senior high school student. The said variables will be discussed further in the study.

Class attendance is a main factor in the academic success of student. Several studies have revealed that absenteeism has huge and negative impacts in student academic performance. (Klem & Connell, 2004). and other group authors believed that student with low level of academic achievement were more likely to have a higher rate of school absence. Absenteeism brings a lot of negative effect in a student future. Absenteeism produce or result failure and problems in student future. (Steyn& Van, 2002) state that there is decline in value of specialization among the students and significant decrease the achievements of students who absence frequently. Student also missed the interaction lecturer and benefits of specific examples which are used to clarify the difficult concept. Valuable information cannot also be repeated when teacher reteach lecture to absent students (Williams, 2000). Absenteeism can also cause the student to fail or repeat the same year. The Finding also shows that student who attends classes has a positive effect on their academic performance. According to Bowen (2005) have established that students who attend classes more regularly seem to be more successful in their studies than those who regularly absent. (Sharma, 2005) state that students who attend the regular classes get high marks as compare to absent students, high mark in exam and outstanding performance in class are some of the example. In additional (Crede, Roch & Kieszczynka, 2010) state that students that attend class regularly are more likely to remember well the information and apply the knowledge effectively throughout their life. (Moor, 2003) concluded that there is a strong positive correlation between attendance and grades.