Absenteeism Behavior among University Students: Causes and Attitude Levels

• Main Authors: H. Gonca USTA, A. Salih ŞİMŞEK, C. Teyyar UĞURLU
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bülent Ecevit University 2015-12-01
• Series: Yükseköğretim ve Bilim Dergisi
• Subjects: Absenteeism; University student; Att itude; Tendency
• Online Access: http://higheredu-sci.beun.edu.tr/pdf.php3?id=1652
• ISSN: 2146-5959; 2146-5967

This study is about the problematic behaviour of absenteeism which stems from the physical, psychological and social factors that could be seen in high schools as well as universities. The aim of this study is to show how the absenteeism att itudes and tendencies of the students of Cumhuriyet University diff er according to the faculties and type of education. For this purpose, the three dimensional Absenteeism Att idue Scale and the eight dimensional Absenteeism Tendency Scale developed by researchers are used in this study. 795 students studying at Cumhuriyet University in the 2013-2014 academic year have participated in this study. In the analysis, Mann-Whitney-U test is used to test the diff erentiation according to the type of education and the Kruskal-Wallis test is used to test diff erentiation according to the faculty. The results show that students'att itudes towards absenteeism do not diff er according to the type of education but absenteeism tendencies can be observed more in secondary education. The att itudes towards absenteeism according to the faculties diff er at the subdimension of AAS according to the faculties. Absenteism Tendency and instructor, course content and transportation problems which are sub-dimensions of Absenteism Tendency Scale diff er according to the faculties. In order to reduce the absenteeism behaviours of the students, some recommendations can be made according to these results: Instructors can raise awareness in students about the causes of absenteeism, transportation problems can be solved, course contents can be more activating for the students.