The relationship between delinquent attendance, exam performance, final grade, and grade point average.

Abstract

The present study was designed to ascertain the relationship between poor attendance rates, exam score, final course grade, and grade point average (GPA). Subjects were 222 introductory psychology students (82 men and 140 women). Each subject was classified by gender (male or female) and attendance as either delinquent (missed 3 or more 50-minute Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes or 2 or more 80-minute Tuesday-Thursday classes between exams) or regular. Initial, midterm, and final exam scores were gathered for each subject as well as overall course grade, semester grade point average (GPA), and American college Test (ACT) scores. Separate unweighted means, fixed factor analyses of variance were conducted to examine differences between gender and attendance on exam scores, course grades, GPA, and ACT scores. Those subjects with delinquent attendance rates received significantly lower scores than those with regular attendance on midterm and final exams, course grade, and GPA. A significant effect of gender was found in terms of final exam scores and course grade; females received higher scores than males.