CAUSES OF ABSENTEEISM IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AND ITS EFFECTS IN THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

This paper presents the results obtained in the evaluation of the reasons involved in the university student absenteeism at ESIC University Centre of Business and Marketing School.
The term absenteeism has been defined as the conscious and deliberated action of been away from the physical space of the University classroom conditioned for some factors that influence the search of alternatives to the use of time.
Because to have a quality teaching and good academic performance is required that the students regularly assist to classes abseentism in education is considered a first order problem from the educational, social, economic and personal point of view.
In order to detect the main reasons that impact in the decision of not assisting to class, a questionnaire containing 77 items regarding the causes of abseentism was created.
Different focus groups of students and teachers were created for the design of the questionnaire, also were included questions from previous researches in the literature.
The question asked to the students was: From these factors, indicate which elements are important in your decision of no assisting to the classroom. That’s to say I decide not to assist to class because…
The answer was in form of a Liker scale from 1 to 5. 1 indicating totally disagree and 5 indicating totally agree.
Information about the percentage of lost classes, gender, academic grade, course, and age was also required.
The sample included a total of 545 students from different degrees and courses. Information of mean academic grade was obtained from a total of 225 students.
The study provides new evidences on the importance of considering variables related to physical, motivational and emotional factors that affect the students not considered in previous studies. Also confirms the results of the literature including factors related to the nearness of examinations, the Professor’s methodology and the social commitments.
It was obtained clear statistical evidence of the inverse relation between absenteeism and academic grade.