Mandatory University Attendance and Pedagogical Outcomes: Evaluating the Correlation Between Students' Presence, Classroom Management, and Learning Quality. A Case of: Second-Year Master’s Students at University of Ghardaia

Abstract

Recently, mandatory university attendance became a debated measure in higher education that jeopardizes adult learner autonomy to the favour of administrative compliance, where students only need to attend physically and not cognitively, out of genuine interest to learn. The study at hand attempts to investigate the impact of the policy on EFL students’ lesson comprehension and teachers’ classroom management within the English Department at the University of Ghardaïa. Focusing on second-year Master’s students, the study adopted a descriptive, mixed-methods design, where it employed three data collection tools a student questionnaire, a teacher interview (for qualitative insight), and a participant observation (quantitative data via spearman and Pearson correlations). Findings revealed a significant negative correlation between high attendance rate and students active engagement (r=- .630, p=.028) and a positive one between the former and noise-level and off-task behaviour (r= .783) and (r= .769 ) respectively. The findings further showed a corroboration between quantitative and qualitative data, where responses from interviews and questionnaires revealed that relational tension and infantilizing adult off-task behaviour caused a change in the teacher’s role from facilitator to monitor of behaviour. Based on this finding, it is recommended that administrators and policymakers transition from a mandatory, rigid type of attendance measure to a more flexible one, that respects adult learner autonomy and foster intrinsic genuine interest among learners for a more organic presence and, thus, a more organic learning environment that supports cognitive engagement.