Student nurse absenteeism in higher education: An argument against enforced attendance

Lipscomb, M. and Snelling, P. (2010) Student nurse absenteeism in higher education: An argument against enforced attendance. Nurse Education Today, 30 (6). pp. 573-578. ISSN 0260-6917

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Publisher's URL: http://dx.dio.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2009.12.003

Abstract

Unauthorised student nurse absenteeism in higher education troubles many university lecturers. Anecdotally, absenteeism is occasionally raised as an issue by attending students who resent others "getting away" with non-attendance and some policy documents appear to suggest that attendance should be mandated. This paper argues against enforced attendance in higher education and challenges those who would mandate attendance to explain and justify their position. Drawing on a range of nursing and non-nursing material we here discuss some of the literature on attendance, absenteeism, effort or time spent in study and grade attainment. Informed by this admittedly partial review we maintain that the evidence linking grade attainment with attendance and study effort is less conclusive than intuition might initially suggest. We note that enforcing attendance apparently runs counter to important pedagogic (humanistic and androgogic) principles. We propose that responses to absenteeism cannot be separated from questions of ‘harm’ and we suggest that lecturers should refrain from associating nonattendance with unprofessional behaviour and poor professionalization.

Item Type:Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:student nurses, absenteeism, higher education, attendance
Faculty/Department:~Pre-2012 Faculty Structure > Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
~Pre-2010 Faculty Structure > Health and Life Sciences > School of Health and Social Care
~Pre-2012 Faculty Structure > Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Department of Nursing and Midwifery
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Department of Nursing and Midwifery
~Pre-2012 Faculty Structure > Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Centre for Clinical and Health Services Research
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
ID Code:8395
Deposited By: Dr M. Lipscomb
Deposited On:19 Jul 2010 12:24
Last Modified:18 Feb 2013 15:52

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