Argumentative/Persuasion Essay
Mayer
Brit. Lit.
4/25/10
“There is a question that emerges in every student mind at some point in his or her college career, that question is ‘go to class, or lose points?’” There are college and university professors that are either starting to or have been making the class attendance mandatory for the benefit of the students and himself or herself. This decision has materialized because of the increasing number of drop-outs and failing students, just because they rarely attend classes. Even most faculty members, who do not require attendance by their students, encourage attendance in a variety of ways. The mandate of class attendance will benefit the students as well as the faculty of the colleges and universities for a variety of reasons. Research shows that student performance inside the classroom and on the report card is greatly weighted on the attendance of the student. Several studies show that the most valuable and important time commitment in a course was the time actually spent in the classroom.(Schiming) Some other valuable and important time commitments included the time spent in discussion sections that complemented the lectures, and the time spent studying outside of class preparing for the class itself.(Schiming) That study concluded that the most productive time spent in any course was in the classroom; and that time had the greatest positive impact on the students’ performance. Another study of similar motives was taken on the most significant activities the impacted the students’ performance in any given course. The results of that study showed the idea that the most important learning takes place in the classroom and that students who do a conscientious job on a daily basis preparing for and participating in class perform better than students who skip class and try to cram for exams.(Schiming) The study of class attendance in correlation with student grades was also statistically