Reducing Student Absenteeism in the Early Grades by Targeting Parental Beliefs

Attendance in kindergarten and elementary school robustly predicts student outcomes. Despite this well-documented association, there is little experimental research on how to reduce absenteeism in the early grades. This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment in 10 school districts...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:American educational research journal 2018-12, Vol.55 (6), p.1163-1192
Main Authors: Robinson, Carly D., Lee, Monica G., Dearing, Eric, Rogers, Todd
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Absenteeism
Attendance Patterns
Educational research
Elementary School Students
Intervention
Parent Attitudes
Parent Participation
Program Effectiveness
School districts
Students
Studies
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Attendance in kindergarten and elementary school robustly predicts student outcomes. Despite this well-documented association, there is little experimental research on how to reduce absenteeism in the early grades. This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment in 10 school districts evaluating the impact of a low-cost, parent-focused intervention on student attendance in grades K–5. The intervention targeted commonly held parental misbeliefs undervaluing the importance of regular K–5 attendance as well as the number of school days their child had missed. The intervention decreased chronic absenteeism by 15%. This study presents the first experimental evidence on how to improve student attendance in grades K–5 at scale and has implications for increasing parental involvement in education.
ISSN:0002-8312
1935-1011
DOI:10.3102/0002831218772274