Abstract
Background/Objectives: Regular attendance at school is essential for allround development of students. The fundamental objective of this study was to utilize low-cost technology of cell phones to report to parents/guardians about the attendance of their children at schools and ascertain the impacts of cell phone calls on the attendance of Middle School students placed at risk of Drop out. Methods/Statistical analysis: This study was Experimental with a PretestPosttest Control Group by design and descriptive by purpose. The participants were 30 eight graders belonging to a Public Middle School of District Shaheed Benazirabad in Pakistan. These participants were then randomly assigned to Control and Experimental Groups (15 each). For intervention of making cell phone calls to parents/guardians to inform and ask them about the reason for the absence of their child, a teacher in each participating school was assigned this responsibility. The intervention lasted for 3 months. The data was analyzed using SPSS repeated measure t-test to calculate the significance of the impact of intervention. Findings: Results of the present study indicated that the attendance of Experimental Group on Posttest (75.07 %) was significantly higher than that on Pretest (62.87%). Novelty : This study utilizes existing technology available to almost everyone and bridges the parents and school administration to get the best outcome quickly; mobile-based intervention is simple and docile to regulate students’ performance at school level; it also improves the safety of the students.
Highlights
Formal learning generally occurs in a school-based environment and attending schools regularly is both necessary and important for elementary level students to become well-educated, useful, and successful members of society
This study is aimed at engaging parents/guardians through cell phone calls to reduce students’ absenteeism rates at a Public Middle School
This study investigated the impact of cell phone calls on the attendance of eight graders placed at risk of dropping out from school due to noncompliance of seventy-five percent compulsory attendance requirements
Summary
Formal learning generally occurs in a school-based environment and attending schools regularly is both necessary and important for elementary level students to become well-educated, useful, and successful members of society. Such citizens shall contribute to the development of society and play an active role in molding. Rajput et al / Indian Journal of Science and Technology 2020;13(40):4224–4233 a dormant society into a dynamic society This active role of citizens calls for the possession of skills, actions, attitudes, and knowledge. Better attendance scores of students at a school level are positively correlated with higher passing rates in terms of achievement tests[2]. Both studies highlight the importance of student attendance in terms of achievement
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