Attending to Student Success: Understanding the Antecedents, Realities, and Consequences of Absenteeism in Higher Education

The notion of class attendance has largely been ignored, where students, faculty, and administrators substitute assumptions for empirical evidence. The data is clear: attendance matters, more so than any other known contributor to student success. Yet, policies and practices often overlook these data. Attending Student Success is a comprehensive guide for building sustainable cultures of student success in higher education, through the use of attendance data. Andrew P. Miller synthesizes decades of research pertaining to the myriad definitions, trends, and strategies of student success efforts. He explores the various perceptions and misconceptions surrounding attendance and illustrates the impetus for using these data to foster student success. Miller then provides guidance to make these data actionable through policy changes, early-alert strategies, and data-informed decision-making for cultural change management.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments SECTION I: DEFINING THE CONTEXT Chapter 1: The competing and co-dependent interests in student success Chapter 2: Defining Attendance: Historical trends and future trajectories Chapter 3: Attitudes and Assumptions about Absenteeism SECTION II: DEFINING THE RELATIONSHIPS Chapter 4: Attendance and Student Success – at a macro level Chapter 5: Attendance and Student Success – at a micro level Chapter 6: A Case Study: Examining the Efficacy of Attendance as a Predictor of Student Performance SECTION III: DEFINING THE FUTURE Chapter 7: Early alerts and interventions for Absenteeism Chapter 8: Policy & Practice: The competing and co-dependent interests in recording & reporting upon attendance Bibliography

About the Author :
Andrew P. Miller is an independent scholar.

Review :
Institutional leaders grappling with the age-old question of how to manage student absenteeism, a challenge further complicated by the monumental growth in remote learning, need not look any further for a comprehensive resource to guide their decision-making. Attending to Student Success offers a balanced compendium of data and information colleges and universities need to develop effective, evidence-based policies and procedures. Dr. Miller's work highlights the tension between higher education's traditions and policies, and the fluid landscape of technological advances, economics, and human experiences. His balanced, yet empathetic, examples of students' academic engagement (or lack thereof) encourage the reader to reconsider how behaviors ultimately measure up to student success. In an era of shifting course modalities and increasing demands on students’ time and attention, Miller calls critical attention to the perennially important topic of course attendance.