Abstract:

A major growing concern for educators at higher learning institutions is student absenteeism. This trend appears to take a toll on both educators and students in the institution in terms of morale and performance and seems to be on the increase, particularly in North America. In order to get an interdisciplinary perspective on this topic, this paper presents a systematic review of the literature published on classroom attendance in higher education institutions since 1990. As such, it examines and summarizes the literature across the disciplines on empirical studies evaluating attendance trends in the higher education classroom, the connection between attendance and student performance, reasons and motivation for non-attendance, and the suggested policies and methods to address this issue. Such a literature review is necessary in order to frame the work that has already been done in this area and to aid those researchers who would like to move the area forward.

Keywords:

student, attendance, absenteeism, motivation, policies, higher education, literature.