Non-attendance of Lectures; Perceptions of Tertiary Students: A Study of Selected Tertiary Institutions in Ghana

Abstract

Universities in Ghana in their students’ handbooks require students to adhere to the institution’s class attendance policy. Meanwhile some students absent themselves from class even though they are aware of the benefits of attending lectures, and the consequences for not attending lectures. Therefore, this study is focused on ascertaining the reasons why “poor lecturing” is blamed for the non-attendance of lectures by some undergraduate students in the selected public universities in Ghana (Universities of Ghana—UG, University of Cape Coast—UCC, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology—KNUST, and Cape Coast Technical University—CCTU). Close-ended questionnaires were used in the collection of data from 800 students in four public tertiary institutions. SPSS V-23 was used to determine the frequencies and percentages of respondents in relation to the variables. Based on the results, majority of the students mostly complained about the confusing nature of lectures aside other reasons like boring, complex, impractical, and other personal reasons which students were not willing to disclose.