Engineering Students' Engagement and Their Perspective on Compulsory Classroom Attendance

The link between class attendance, student engagement, and student success is controversial in Higher Education. Some universities monitor student attendance in the classroom. The difference between monitoring or recording attendance and enforcing a compulsory attendance policy should be clarified. This paper aims to explore engineering students' experience of applying attendance monitoring and enforcing a mandatory attendance policy. The relation between increasing the attendance rate and student engagement is also investigated. The primary research questions are: what are student perspectives on compulsory attendance monitoring? and why do senior engineering students attend classes? A pilot case study investigates senior undergraduate engineering student experience before and after the attendance monitoring system was performed. A survey was used to determine the view of students on how the compulsory attendance system influences their motivation and engagement in the classroom and what motivated them to attend before the compulsory policy became in effect. The findings can enrich higher education teaching and learning authorities with thoughts on future strategic policies and strategic research in the digital transformation era.