University attendance and academic performance: Encouraging student engagement

Absenteeism in higher education has motivated the investigation of its effect on academic performance. This paper examines the effect of implementing an incentive scheme on seminar PPA (prior preparation and attendance) and performance focusing on a cohort of international postgraduate students over two academic years in two conversion economics (quantitative and non-quantitative) modules at a Scottish business school. The results show that the scheme leads to an increase in the class PPA in both modules and in the probability of passing the quantitative module, however academic performance is affected at a lesser extent.