Many colleges and universities across the United States have mixed opinions and implementations of attendance policies.
Some majors, programs, and professors require attendance to be mandatory. While others only require coursework to be completed on time and correctly. This has been a topic of controversy among students and professors for quite some time.
Only some courses should have mandatory attendance policies. If the students are able to learn and understand the material on their own, or have already learned it and are able to complete the assignments in a timely and successful manner, attendance should not be mandatory.
Before the pandemic, online courses were offered in many colleges across the United States. Since the pandemic, online courses have become much more normalized and popular for students to take. These courses don’t require students to attend class, just for the coursework to be done and the information to be learned.
In addition to this, because of COVID policies, many programs and majors have a mixture of in-person and online courses. Because some of the courses will not be offered at other times, students are forced to take a class that may contradict their learning style.
Every student has a different learning style, and while in person classes work for some they might not work for others, just like online courses.
Online asynchronous courses do not require attendance of any sort. This does not affect the validity of the course, so students should not be graded so harshly on their attendance for in-person courses.
For courses that require in-person interaction, attendance would obviously be mandatory. This would be for courses such as American Sign Language, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) labs, and practicums.
Many students have problems with attendance policies because instructors are not understanding when it comes to absences. Excused absences should be any absence that the student informs the instructor of beforehand.
Most people don’t really plan on getting sick, and don’t want to come to class to spread sickness to their classmates. Many people, though, will attend class anyway because their grade will drop if they are not in class.
Students are paying for their education whether it’s through scholarships, financial aid, themselves, or another source. Students should be able to choose whether or not they want to come to class in-person because they are adults and they are paying for the courses.
Students with frequent absences are more likely to come from classes with strict attendance policies. There are many factors that contribute to a student’s attendance. Whether these are health concerns, personal events, mental health issues, or other variables, as long as the students are understanding the material and learning from the course, attendance should not be as heavily weighted as it is.
Professors and instructors should consider lowering the weight of an attendance grade or getting rid of the attendance policy entirely.
