A defiant student wants to know why some college professors take points off for low attendance:
...my refusal to attend class does not excuse policies that subvert the value of learning and education, emphasizing attendance instead.
Professors who implement attendance policies often argue, “If this were a job, and you failed to show up, you would be fired.” There is, however, one big difference between going to work versus going to class.
A job pays for my service, but I pay my professors for their services. I spend plenty of money on my education, and my choice to fully take advantage of the expense is exactly that — my choice.
When evaluating superior standardized test scores, such as what one might make on the SAT and ACT, admissions officers don’t ask whether students attended prep courses before the exam. Obviously, a high score denotes that a test taker knows the material.
The writer, one Chris Piper of UT-Arlington, then answers his own question:
I truly believe most professors want their students to score well, which is why they implement attendance policies. I am touched by the sentiment. But if missing class leads to poor results by traditional grading methods — tests, quizzes, projects, etc. — then so be it. The student body could use some winnowing out.
I think this is exactly why most professors ask that students come to class. Even the ones who should be "winnowed out" have, like Chris, paid tuition, and so I imagine most professors want to emphasize that their scholarly material will be inadequately understood by those students who skip lectures. So they tell the students, if you want your money's worth, come to class, and then they back it up with attendance policies, pop quizzes, and so on.
Given that pop quizzes would penalize an absent student as much as an attendance policy would, it's hard to see why Chris supports that method, unless he is convinced that his professors don't work hard enough. I give lots of pop quizzes in my statistics courses because they do provide useful feedback, and because I don't take points off for poor attendance. But then, I don't have to; anyone who skips a lot of stats lectures is most likely not going to do well, pop quizzes aside.
Posted by kswygert at November 24, 2003 11:11 AM