To: John Butler, Chair, Classrooms Committee

From: Rosalie F. Maddocks, Chair, Subcommittee 3

Date: March 1, 1999

Subject: GEOL 1376 MWF Attendance, S95

This is anecdotal evidence comparing MWF with TTH attendance. See accompanying plots.

GEOL 1376: Historical Geology is a second-semester Natural Science course in the Undergraduate Core Curriculum, taught in lecture format. The majority of students select it to fulfill a Core requirement. Off and on, I have kept attendance, but the only semester for which I have saved the data is Spring 95. That semester I happened to be teaching a section of 54 students at 11 AM MWF and another of 40 students at 8:30 AM TTH. The contrast in attendance patterns is enlightening.

The X axis shows the days 1 through 42 of the Spring Calendar for a MWF class (days 1-28 for TTH).

The Y axis is the number of absent students. An absent student is an enrolled student who took the previous exam and would be expected to be attending. After exams 1 and 2, the no-shows were dropped from the course, so by definition there were no absences on those exam days. Thus, the students who dropped or were dropped are not included in the attendance data past the first exam they missed. The Last Day to Drop a Class occurred before exam 3, so no-shows for exam 3 are marked as absent.

Days of the week are identified as M, W and F. Spring Break occurred between Friday day 23 and Monday day 24. In-class exams were given on days 14, 27 and 41. Good Friday (not a holiday) was day 35. The

Certain patterns stand out: There is no day on which every student is present, but the smallest number of absences occurs on day 4. This suggests that day 4, rather than the first day of class, is the best day to give announcements concerning class policies and expectations. During the first four weeks attendance is pretty good. After exam 1 absences increase and a cyclical pattern emerges, with high absenteeism on Fridays, and best attendance on Wednesdays.

In the TTH class, overall attendance is slightly better. A slight preference for absences on Thursdays emerges only after exam 2 and may not be significant.

(Talking with students about their attendance habits, I find that some students consider themselves to be "victims" of circumstances rather than in control. I recall the young man to whom I pointed out that he had been absent each Friday, and he looked at me with wide-open eyes and said, "But I have to work on Fridays!" A certain fraction of the students who sign up for a MWF class actually do plan to work on Friday and take leave only if there is an exam.)

In the accompanying laboratory course GEOL 1176, we have kept attendance records for a number of years for the MW and TTH sections. There is a distinct tendency for the TTH students to be more regular in attendance and diligent in efforts. I believe that working students who wish to take a full load try to put all their classes into two days a week and tend to select TTH.