Factors Influencing Student Attendance and Engagement

Undergraduate student researchers assisted with the design, delivery, and analysis for a project investigating low attendance at timetabled teaching sessions. Data was gathered from 208 students representing all four faculties on three Anglia Ruskin University campuses (i.e. Cambridge, Chelmsford, and Guild House, Peterborough), and comparison data was gathered from University Centre Peterborough. Results show that, contrary to anecdotal evidence, poor attendance is not the result of content hosted on the VLE, financial decisions made by fee-paying ‘consumers’, disaffected ‘tap-in’ system users, or employment, but is in fact a complex combination of factors based around an unevenly distributed timetable.