Class attendance and academic performance: A subgroup analysis

My paper contributes in two ways to the existing literature that examines the impact of attendance on exam performance. First, I analyze new, longitudinal data on students from a large public university in the US. Second, I investigate whether the average attendance effect varies by a student's race, gender and level of preparedness for the course. My results suggest that attending class has a positive and significant effect on exam performance. This effect is robust across specifications. Additionally, I find that the average attendance effect is not uniform across subgroups of students. Males, Non-whites, students who have completed the prerequisite class at another institution, received a lower grade in the prerequisite, taken the prerequisite a while back, or have a lower overall GPA to begin with enjoy higher returns from attending class. The results suggest a role for policies that encourage attendance, preferably through active learning techniques.