Links between assessment, attendance and student performance in macroeconomics

There is discussion in the academic community that variety of assessment and attendance will improve student performance overall. The links between assessment, attendance and student performance in an undergraduate intermediate level Macroeconomics subject were examined. The introduction of an exam into the assessment for Macroeconomics had no effect on attendance or student performance when compared to assignment based assessment. However, the introduction of an exam had a large negative effect on enrolments with a fall of over 30%. A regression model was developed to examine the effect of attendance on student performance. There was a strong positive relationship between attendance and student performance with the model predicting a 25% increase in performance for those students attending tutorials compared to those with low attendance. This would result in a grade higher for those with good attendance. The relationship between attendance and performance was non linear. It was estimated that at least 56% of the students were in some ways motivated to be self learners. There was no significant difference found in traditional face to face and online, distance student’s performance, given that online distance students are self-learners and they also have access to video streamed lectures, power points and other teaching and learning resources from course moodle site. Considering the large variability of attendance, the introduction of an exam has had a relatively minor effect on attendance and the failure rate, but a significant effect on fall in enrolment for macroeconomics course.