Linking Student Absenteeism on Different Days of the Week to Student Achievement

Summary:  View help for Summary Extensive research has found that when students miss more school days, they have lower test scores. However, little is known about the ways in which students miss these days – namely how missing different days of the week might link differently to test scores. Having this insight, however, holds important knowledge for building interventions and supporting instruction. In that vein, this research explored whether accruing absences on particular days of the week linked differently to student performance on standardized exams. Relying on school district data for students in elementary school, there were two key findings. First, missing any amount of school is negatively associated with lower achievement. That said, our second finding suggests that missing more Mondays stood out as particularly negative for test score performance. The results were only present with excused absences, highlighting that this issue is about missing school, not disengagement necessarily. The results differed for different student groups, and implications are thus discussed.

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms absenteeism; elementary education; absence patterns