Attendance versus performance in a residential section with an online sibling section

In the past MS 150 Statistics was taught only as a residential course. When I took over the course in 2000 the college had an attendance policy that permitted six absences, excused or unexcused did not matter. On the seventh absence, the student was to be withdrawn from the course. 

With time that policy was changed to one where the faculty member decided on the appropriate attendance policy for their course, and I shifted to not counting absences excused for medical issues or academically related travel by a student.

Then the pandemic hit and all courses moved online. Physical attendance disappeared. With the six campuses of the college spanning two time zones and with many students lacking home Internet access, there was no other realistic choice than to deliver the course asynchronously. In lieu of attendance, regular and substantive participation had to be shown by the students. 

With the return of some residential sections fall 2021, I opted to leave one section of statistics online while returning the other section to residential instruction. Both sections cover the same material on the same day, work on the same homework, and take the same tests. This work is all done in the Instructure Canvas learning management system. 

Because the online section students never attend class, making some form of mandatory attendance policy for the residential section did not make sense and still does not make sense to me. A student can either watch statistics videos I have prepared or, if in the residential section, attend class where I will cover the same material.

One result of this structure is that the residential students have taken to previewing the material coming up and, if they feel they understand the material, then they do not attend class. They show their presence by completing the work due on that day. The residential students tend to come to class only when they have questions or need assistance. 

A few students still attend rather regularly, perhaps out of habit as much as anything else. 

Given the above, what relationship if any exists in the residential section between attendance and performance in the course? In the past attendance was fairly strongly correlated to performance in the course. Bear in mind that back in 2009 the course had no online support materials and did not utilize a learning management system.

Attendance versus overall score at week seven in MS 150 Statistics fall 2021

At present, however, there is no correlation between attendance and performance in the course. The above chart plots the number of days of attendance for students in the residential section and the linear regression for the relationship between attendance and the overall score in the course. There is no relationship. The purple lines are a confidence interval for the regression and a slope of zero cannot be ruled out. In a course structured in the manner in which MS 150 Statistics is structured, with full support for remote learning, attendance has no impact on learning as measured by performance in the course. And if you cannot show that, then there really is nowhere one can go with arguing for physical attendance in this particular situation.

After an in-class introduction to a topic, students in the residential section choosing to also watch my online video presentation of the topic

For me, this then calls into question not just attendance, but also seat time, class clock hours, Carnegie units - many of the traditional measures that underlie credits earned, tuition structures, and many other metrics in a college. 

Having taught in relatively traditional structures over the past four decades, this does not feel so much like a new normal as it does a brave new world of education. One I am still grappling with. My role as a sage on a stage ended long before the pandemic, but now more than ever I see myself as a facilitator of learning, more of a coach than an expounder of knowledge to be accumulated. What this means for the many metrics that define my work and workplace remains unclear to me.