Do Truants Feel Overtaxed at School?

• In Event: Poster Session 1
  In Poster Session: Learning Environments Poster Session

Abstract

Little is known about the association of classroom characteristics with adolescent truancy. A critical question is whether high achievement standards, high workload, and high pace protect against or increase adolescent truancy. In this study, self-reports from 3,491 Swiss grade 7, grade 8 and grade 9 students in 202 classes were used to predict truancy. Multilevel modeling was used to differentiate between the student and classroom levels. Findings showed that high achievement standards were associated with a lower truancy rate at both the student and the classroom level, whereas high instructional pace was associated with more truancy at both levels. A perception of the workload as being too low was an additional predictor of high truancy at the student level.

Author

• Christine Saelzer, Technische Universität München