Psychosocial determinants of absenteeism

Cilj provedenog istraživanja bio je analizirati školske izostanke s obzirom na spol, školski uspjeh, obrazovanje majke i percepciju osobne nekompetentnosti uz poseban osvrt na mišljenje učenika o izostancima. Pretpostavili smo da će djevojke, učenici s boljim školskim uspjehom, učenici obrazovanijih majki te učenici koji sebe percipiraju kompetentnijima manje izostajati, a imat će i manje neopravdanih izostanaka. Od navedenih varijablâ samo je školski uspjeh značajno negativno povezan s brojem izostanaka, osobito neopravdanih. Diskriminacijska analiza pokazala je da se na temelju školskog uspjeha može predviđati koji će učenici imati neopravdane izostanke. Ispitivanjem učeničke percepcije izostanaka dobiveno je da učenici najčešće izostaju zbog straha od ispitivanja ili loše ocjene te zbog preopterećenosti gradivom. Mogućnost smanjenja izostanaka vide u povećanju kvalitete i zanimljivosti nastave te u smanjenju količine gradiva i čestoće ispitivanja.This study was conducted with a view to analysing absenteeism according to gender, school performance, the level of the mother’s education, and the personal perception of incompetence, with special emphasis on the students’ attitude to absenteeism. The assumption was that girls, students who perform better at school, students of mothers with a higher level of education, and students who perceived themselves as more competent would be absent less frequently, and would have fewer unjustified absences. Out of the listed variables, only school performance was significantly negatively related to the number of absences, especially unjustified ones. Discriminative analysis shows that it may be predicted on the basis of school performance which students will have unjustified absences. An analysis of students’ views on absences showed that students are most frequently absent out of fear of examinations or receiving bad grades, or because they are overloaded with learning material. They see an opportunity for reducing absenteeism in improving the quality of teaching and in making it more interesting, and in reducing the quantity of learning material and the frequency of examinations