Adisti Gilang Cempaka
Accounting Department Universitas Padjadjaran [email protected]
Abstract: This paper focuses on attendance of laboratory class as a structured academic support program, which considers enhancing students’ performance. Although both mandatory attendance and assessment policy enforce laboratory participation, there is concern that students attend the laboratory with insufficient preparation. The aim of this study is to determine if there is an association between laboratory attendance and student performance as well as analyzing students’
preparation in order to attend the laboratory. This paper investigates the laboratory program for third year accounting course, using students enrolled in Advanced Financial Accounting for the academic year 2015/2016 at Universitas Padjadjaran. This paper examines quantitatively whether there is a correlation between tutorial attendance and the average exam performance differentiated between gender and students status. The main finding of the paper suggests there was a statistically significant positive correlation between laboratory attendance and average exam performance, where the strong correlation occurred in retake students. The second approach involves the analysis of students’ self-assessment responses to a survey regarding the preparation of laboratory activities. The Results show that in average students are considered well prepared, it is recognized that most students do preparation less than 30 minutes with the common reason is preparing for other courses.
Keywords: Laboratory class, student preparation, student attendance and performance, advanced financial accounting course
INTRODUCTION
During recent years there have been considerable shifts in student attitudes due to changing of development in information and communication technology. Some courses use a combination of lecture sessions with other structured academic support programmed in smaller groups, called tutorial, laboratory, practical class or workshop as a key method for undergraduate learning and teaching.
Nevertheless, different universities adopt different approaches and every lecture has own teaching methods. Learning through attending lectures and its supporting classes still expected in this technological age (Alexander and Hicks,2015). Laboratory is one of structured academic support programmed, which considers enhancing students’ performance especially when the course matter including technical skill.
Lecturer provides student with explanation of concepts and issues regarding each topics, however, it is found that it there is difficulty to give a chance for students to practice their technical skill. Therefore, the purpose of the laboratory class is to reinforce students’ application of concepts and techniques in problem solving where they are expected to prepare their self before attending the laboratory session. However, casual observation often find that students attending the class with little preparation. This condition would reduce the learning benefits students can achieve when attending laboratory class. Mandatory attendance and its assessment policy makes laboratory are equally important to the lecture. Nevertheless, it is unknown whether this supporting class gives students
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Although literature on mandatory structured academic support class is limited, a significant body of literature exists on attendance in lecture and other supporting classes; it is to provide preliminary insight into the topic. The literature on attendance and performance across numerous discipline among university students has been done in USA, Australia, and UK (Gbadamosi,2015;Alexander and Hicks,2015).
Since Romer (1993) seminal article, there have been studies related to attendance and how it affects student performance. Generally accepted view, most of the studies have shown that attendance does matter for academic achievement (see.Devadoss and Foltz (1996); Rodgers (2001); Kirby and Mc.Elroy (2003)) these result suggest that attendance at class should be mandatory in some undergraduate courses. Romer (1993) in his widely cited paper “do students go to class? Should they?” provided the first analysis of the relationship between lecture attendance and exam performance in Intermediate Macroeconomics course. After controlling for motivation he found that attendance had a positive and significant impact on academic performance. He also found that students more often attend small classes. Additionally, he suggested to consider applying mandatory class attendance policy in to enhance student performance.
Student will encourage attending the classes when they perceive a benefit of them (see. Baderin (2005); Massingham and Herrington (2006); Gbadamosi (2015);Alexander and Hicks (2015)).
Devadoss and Foltz (1996) found that students who attended all classes achieved a full letter grade higher than students who attended less than 50 per cent of the class. In addition, Dobkin et al (2010) apply a regression discontinuity approach; students who scored below the median on a mid-term examination are required to attend class in the second half of the semester. They found that the mandatory policy had a significant impact on the final examination. On the contrary, Caviglia Harris (2006) observed 301 microeconomics students at Salisbury University reported that strict mandatory attendance policy did not impact grade.
In smaller class, Horn and Jansen (2008) used ordinary least squares regression model to investigate the impact of various factors, including the voluntary tutorial system on the performance of economics students at South African university. They found that lecture and tutorial attendance contributed positively to the performance of economics students. Another interesting finding was females attended more tutorials than males, and a significant positive effect of tutorial attendance on performance was found, with a larger effect for first-attempted students than for repeat students.Moreover Adair and Swinton (2012) showed that mandatory lab attendance is relates positive significantly to course performance. However, Rodgers (2002) implemented a scheme in an introductory statistics course at an Australian university, finds a strong positive association between attendance at tutorials and performance, whereas, academic performance did not improve comparing across cohorts in the previous year.
Massingham and Herrington (2006), Stanca (2006) and Mallik (2011) investigated the correlation between lecture attendance and academic supporting classes simultaneously and its impact on performance. The results showed attendance in both lecture and tutorial positively correlate with academic performance. Kirby and McElroy (2003) found that attendance has a positive effect on grade achieved at an Irish university. Moreover, they reported that tutorial attendance has quantitatively greater effects on grades than did lecture attendance. This result was echoed by Gbadamosi (2015), improving seminar attendance but not lecture was significantly correlated with a significant predictor of academic performance.
Marburger (2006) showed that mandatory attendance policy has strong impact on reducing absenteeism, however the correlation between absenteeism and exam performance is weak. Crede, Roch, and Kieszcynka (2010) reported that there was a small but significant increase in grades when
attendance was mandatory. Rodgers (2001) used a panel data on business and economics students found that tutorial attendance has a small but statistically significant effect on students’ performance.
Hutcheson and Tse (2006) found that, even though a large portion of students attend to tutorial class unprepared, regular attendance in tutorial did lead to a better exam mark. Baderin (2005) showed that adequate preparation by both lectures and students is very important for a successful tutorial session; he also found most students sometimes had satisfactory preparation for their tutorials.
Hoffman and Lerche (2016) stated that class attendance is only helpful when the students regularly having preparation in advanced or during class. Furthermore, lack of preparation could impaired the learning benefit of the tutorial it self (see Hutcheson and Tse (2006) and Baderin (2005))
Some researches has been done in particular accounting field. Paisey and Paisey (2004) in an exploratory study provided preliminary confirmation in an accounting education context regarding the correlation between attendance and performance. There was clear positive relationship between attendance at classes and students’ performance in financial accounting class at Scotish University.
Additionally, females were better attendance than male both in lectures and seminars, where lecture attendance seems to be a better indicator of performance than seminars.Uyar et al (2016) reported that for first year-students who were taking financial accounting course, attendance is one of factors that have significant influence in students’ performance. Collett et al (2007) found that after controlling other factors, attendance at tutorials affect student performance in management accounting course.
Other authors who examined the effect of attendance in management accounting class was Isa and Abdullah(2009)who found that a clear positive relationship between attendance and academic performance, this result was echoed by Ayob and Selamat(2011) who reported that absenteeism was negatively and statistically significant associated with students’ score. Schmulian and Coetzee (2011) showed a significant positive correlation between class attendance and academic performance;
however, the correlation is weak and not very meaningful. Jameel and Hamdan (2015)stated that attendance is able to play an important role in improving accounting students’ performance. On the other hand, they argued that implying strict attendance policies could lead to counterproductive results, since students come to the class just to avoid the punishment.Additionally, Maksy and Wagaman (2015) stated that Intermediate Accounting II was one of the strong predictor in Advanced Financial Accounting Course.
This study seeks to add existing literature by focusing on the area that has received little attention, with a particular emphasis on the question of whether mandatory laboratory attendance associated with academic performance, including predicting the impact of laboratory attendance and previous knowledge on students’ success and looking into students’ habit in preparing their laboratory class.
This paper proceeds as follows: section 2 provides the data and methodology. Section 3 presents the results with a discussion of the finding. Section 4 concludes the finding and implication of the study.
METHODS
DESCRIPTION OF THE SAMPLE
The data in this study focus on students enrolled for third-year Advanced Financial Accounting course as one of required course in bachelor of accounting degree programmed in Economics and Business Faculty Universitas Padjadjaran .The data are cross sectional and conducted for 2015/2016 academic year. The Accounting Study Programmed reflect a total of 211 Students who were registered for the Advanced Financial Accounting course. Students who did not sit in formal examination either
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required to have previously taken Intermediate Financial Accounting II as the pre-requisite course.
There were 7 different classes being held on that semester, the course was structured such that Each week during the semester students should attend a two and a half hour lecture and two and a half hour a laboratory class,and students earned 3 credit hours. The attendance policy for both classes was mandatory. The course was taught over 14 weeks in the odd semester.
The laboratory programmed is a structured academic support programmed, which were held in 15 separate different classes in different schedule with about 15-20 students each. Ten weeks laboratory class were conducted weekly and commence two weeks after the semester begin the students were allowed to pick the lab fits their schedule unless the class was full.
The laboratory score contribute 20% of final grade; students may choose to skip the class and missing 20% of its score as consequences. The laboratory programmed in this course was aimed at providing students with an opportunity to solve problem by applying the knowledge covered in lectures, particularly the accounting technique. The class was lead by a teaching assistant. The teaching assistants are fourth year accounting student who have been accepted through recruitment process during previous academic year. Students were meant to attend the lab they were enrolled in, however, it was acceptable for them to attend other lab class if personal circumstances prevented them from attending their regular class. This condition only applied twice in a semester. To help students with their preparation, students need to summarize material from recommended textbook reading in each meeting, except for the last meeting. During the labs, attendance was taken and homework was collected, and periodically quizzes were given at the beginning of the lab class, where teaching assistantpicks the students randomly. Each student has quiz opportunity that is before and after mid exam, the quizzes were meant to review and to reinforce the learning material.There was also the same an in-lab activity that was given across 15 different classes.
Passing grade policy is applied in this course since 2014/2015 academic year, therefore, there were two different group regarding students enrolment status, the first group consist of students who taken this course for the first time, which normally sit in the 5th semester. The other group consist of students who retaken this course. Students have to retake classes because they did not pass the course the first time, or whether to simply improve their grade.
METHODS AND VARIABLE MEASURES
By using secondary data, the quantitative approach to laboratory attendance used statistical analysis to investigate if there was a relationship between a student’s laboratory attendance and the average score they achieved for the course. The laboratory attendance data in this study was collected by looking at the records, which is taken by teaching assistant. Proportion of Laboratory attendance is calculated by divided the number of laboratory attended over the total number of laboratory available week. Moreover, The exam score was gathered from FEB’s final grade database.
The measure of student performance used in this study was from the average of mid exam and final exam score, rather than the final score for the course. It is considered these score reflects the students’ individual work. Even though all students were expected to attend the whole laboratory meeting and its score is a part of final score assessment, some students opted to forgo the classes, it leads to the data biased, therefore to avoid this, the final score is not used to measure the achievement.
Student’s attendance was later compared with their performance
To measure the student success a binary dependent variable was created, 0 to failed students (student who got less than B grade) and 1 to non-failed students (students who got A or B). This
measurement based on the policy implied in Advanced Financial Course. To answer the research question primary data was used. The questionnaire survey used in this approach was designed so that students were able to provide feedback on laboratory attendance. The surveys were distributed to students at the final week of laboratory class for the semester. This was a review laboratory class and so students had a considerable amount of time to complete the questionnaire.
This contained closed-ended questions asking student whether they believed that laboratory class is beneficial for them in evaluating their understanding of concept and practicing the technical ability. This was measured on a 5-point likert scales ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. Next question identify where they felt learnt the most whilst studying this course, the option were when attending lectures, when attending laboratory classes, both of them or when studying in my own time or group study. These questions were used to obtain information on how important laboratory activities were as a structured academic program from student point of view. The last question asked students about their preparation before attending the laboratory class. The responses to this question should allow predicting some common habit of students in preparation before attending the laboratory class. In this part some different questions were developed. firstly, the questionnaire asked respondents to rate their preparation on 5-point likert scale . The ratings were; never, rarely, occasionally/sometimes, quite often, every time/always. This preparation activities included in were reading the textbook, reading the lecture notes, practicing exercise questions about the topic covered and consulting with classmates or study group. Secondly, respondents were asked to indicate the possible reasons for not doing adequate preparation in semi-closed-ended question. The respondents were provided with 5 choices; had to finish completing a task for another subject, had organization commitments in department, faculty or university, had other commitments out side campus, and without reason. In addition, a space was available for respondents to list “other” reasons for not well prepared.
THE HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
In order to answer the research preposition questions, several hypotheses were developed in this research study:
1. There will be differences in students’ lab attendance between two different group of gender and two different group of students’ enrolment status
2. There will be statistically significant relationship between student attendance in laboratory and the average exam score.
3. Whether first-attempted students’ success or failure in this course is determined by students’
laboratory attendance and grade in pre-requisite course SPSS software was used for statistical analysis.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This study examined the importance of laboratory attendance to students’ performance, using data from 2015/2016 academic years to measure the results against defined hypothesis. The sample was 204 students consist of 75% first-attempt student and 25% retake student.
HYPOTHESIS TESTING-RESULT Hypothesis 1
Hypothesis 1 was formulated to compare the attendance rate differentiated between gender (female and male) and status (first-attempt and retake). Before testing the hypothesis, the assumption
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differed significantly from a normal distribution. This led to a decision to use the non-parametric Mann- Whitney test.
Table 1. Mean, Standard Deviation and Mann-Whitney test results of Students’ attendance rate- Based on Gender and Enrolment Status
Attendance Rate Survey N Mean SD M-W test
p-value
1 Gender Female 115 0.9617 0.11
0.000
Male 89 0.8022 0.27
2 Enrolment Status First-attempt 153 0.9222 0.16
0.002
Retake 51 0.8020 0.29
Table 1 is presented that students’ attendance rate were significant (at 1% level of significance) different from 2 groups observed (gender and enrolment status). These findings suggest that female students attended more laboratory class than male students, with 96.17% and 80.22% average attendance rate, respectively. First-attempt students had higher attendance rate compare to retake students, with 92.22% attendance rate. The total average number of attendance for the whole sample is 89.36%
Hypothesis 2
Hypothesis 2 was formulated to measure the correlation between attendance rate and students’
performance based on the whole sample, gender(female and male), and enrolment status(first-attempt and retake). The dependent variable was measured on interval scale and the independent variable was measured on ratio scale. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test was conducted to identify the data distribution. It was identified that the data differed significantly from a normal distribution. Hence, this hypothesis was tested using Spearman’s Rank correlation coefficient technique.
Table 2. Spearman’s Rank correlation coefficient test result of Students’ attendance and Average exam score
Attendance Rate and Average
Exam Score Survey N Coefficient Spearman’s Rank
test p-value
1 Whole Sample 204 0.406 0.000
2 Gender Female 115 0.302 0.001
Male 89 0.498 0.000
3 Enrolment Status First-attempt 153 0.318 0.000
Retake 51 0.631 0.000
The Pearson correlation between the attendance rate and exam score using the whole sample is 0.406, which indicates that there is a moderate positive relationship between the variables. The p- values for the correlation are less than 0.05, which indicates that correlation coefficient is statistically significant. Differentiated between gender groups Table 2 shows that the female group has weaker relationship compared with male group, which only 0.302 coefficient correlation. In Enrolment status group Retake group show 0.631 coefficient correlation, which indicate strong relationship between variables, this group has the strongest relationship compare with other groups.
Hypothesis 3
Logistic (logit) analysis was used in this research to examine the factors influencing the probability of student success or failure in this course, a binary indicator of student failure and success was used as the dependent variable and for independent variable ratio scale was used and dummy variable to measure students achievement in pre-requisite course.
Table 3. Logistic Regression Result
Predictor B Wald p Odds Ratio
Prior Knowledge 1.626 13.577 0.000 5.082
Attendance Rate 2.012 9.785 0.002 7.478
Constant -1.677 0.658 6.505 0.187
In 1% level of significant, Table 3 results indicates that the variable laboratory attendance is statistically have significant positive impact to the success in the course and that students attending more than 8 laboratories are more likely to pass the advanced financial accounting course. The other variable, prior knowledge grade is significant, indicating students who received a passing grade in pre –requisite course (Intermediate Accounting-II) are more likely to pass the course than students who failed in pre-requisite course. Simultaneously, Both independence variables also have significant impact on students’ success and failure in advanced financial accounting course (x2 = 24.925,p<0.01)
QUESTIONNAIRE-RESULT
When analyzing laboratory attendance it is important to ask students themselves for feedback on laboratory attendance. Consequently, questionnaires were distributed to the students. Of the 204 students who completed the course, 167 (81.86%) attended the final week of laboratory class and completed the survey. In order to get optimal results, missing values and poor quality of questionnaires were dropped from the survey. In total, there were 14 questionnaires out of 167 papers that were dropped from the survey, which makes total respondents 153.
The questionnaire asked students to provide feedback to three different questions. The first question allowed students to decide their level of agreement regarding the benefit of laboratory class in evaluating their understanding of concept and practicing the technical ability. The second question students were asked to identify where they felt learnt the most whilst studying this course. The last question asked students about their preparation before attending the laboratory class. These questions were used to gather information on how important laboratory activities were as a structured academic program, which considers enhancing students’ performance. The responses to the last question should allow to predict some common habit for students in preparation before attending the laboratory class.
Table 4 indicates that the respondents, 46,41% students is strongly agree that laboratory class is useful to evaluate their understanding of concept and practicing the technical ability regarding the material, followed by 48,37% student agree. It is considered that the majority of respondents may have found tutorial attendance beneficial as structured academic support. 4,55% students neither agree nor disagree, and 1 of 153 respondents (0.65%) showed the disagreeing of the questionnaire statement.