Students' Engagement during Collection of Attendance: An Experience of a Pilot Study

In many medical colleges in India, the annual intake for an undergraduate course is 250. Recording attendance of 250 students is a humongous task. It involves an average of 8.93 ± 1.06 minutes, which is approximately 15% of the total time of the one-hour lecture. During this time, students commonly sit idly while waiting for their roll number call. Interestingly, continuous calling of 250 roll numbers at a stretch is an additional voice stress to the teachers. With this background, we designed a program – students’ engagement during collection of attendance (SEdCA). A comprehension test about the lecture topic was conducted in five minutes, and the answer sheets were collected in the next three minutes. These answer sheets were then scanned (i.e., looked at all parts of answer sheets) for roll numbers and were recorded in the register. This method keeps the students engaged in an academic activity during the time of attendance recording. It also helps in reduction of voice stress to the teachers. This method of attendance collection may be adapted by institutions according to available logistics especially when their student’s strength is more than 250