What is missing? Rethinking student absences

As a lecturer or tutor, there are few things more frustrating than seeing the names of students on a class list who never actually attend. The considerable effort allocated to the design of the curriculum, assessment and teaching resources seems somewhat futile in light of students who purport to want a degree but do not want or ‘need’ to attend class. Such experiences are exacerbated by those students whose names appear in the following semester after failing the subject and they then proceed to repeat the same pattern of nonattendance. As noted in the literature, the reasons underlying student absences are often multifaceted and complex (Moore, Armstrong, & Pearson, 2008). Furthermore, the reasons for non-attendance can vary considerably (Longhurst, 1999; Lopez-Bonilla & Lopez-Bonilla, 2015), indicating potential contextual differences and the need for further investigation.This Postcard describes my recent experience of student absence at the university where I teach and an intervention implemented with a group of my students